Rafah Orphans Keep Strong with Gaza-grown Vegetables fresh from ECHO and CARE Ihsaan al-Jeab has lived with two younger sisters in the SOS Children's Village at Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip, ever since his mother died from cancer five years ago. Then six months ago, all six children in his family attended his father's burial, too. The young father had suffered from mental illness, and ultimately was unable to cope with the strain of multiple stress: caring for his children alone, the factional fighting that blighted Gaza, and the shortages of food and work since June, 2007 when Israeli imposed a land and sea blockade. After Ihsaan's father died abruptly at age 32, a pauper, his extended family were too poor to feed and clothe any extra children, and the orphans were neglected. They were unschooled and underfed. Ihsaan now is one of 127 Gazan orphans living in Rafah, next to the Egyptian border. He is building up stable relationships with a house mother and foster siblings in a cozy bungalow. Each day some 700 children from the local community join these orphans for classes in the sprawling compound and play on the football pitches and basketball courts. Meals are enhanced by a unique fresh food programme, funded by the European Commission's Humanitarian Aid department, which benefits both the growers and the hungry. Every week, the SOS institute takes delivery of a load of fresh vegetables from a CARE project which buys up produce from struggling farmers in order to feed the most vulnerable people in Gaza. Due to the blockade, farmers cannot export their crops anymore and must find local buyers to survive. Anemia had increased dramatically since the siege was tightened, and Care's fresh food purchases has made a noticeable difference . Twelve-year-old Ihsaan, a soft-spoken boy with deep blue eyes, tells us about his new life: "Two walls in our SOS Village orphanage have bullet holes leftover from the old gun battles, back in summer 2007, when the gates were padlocked to keep us safe from snipers. These have not been painted over with cartoons, like our bungalow. But those bad times are over and we feel more secure. My bedroom is sunny and I share it with my little sisters, Amani and Kefaya. I tease the girls sometimes, but we never fight, because they both are really sweet. There are six other kids who live in our house, too. ma, Letmad Al-Kuri, fixes us lunch or dinner. She tells me I am overdue for a growth spurt, and always lets me have seconds. Today I feel a little sad because my best friend turned 13 , so he had to leave our bungalow to move to a Youth House on the other side of the compound. But I still see him on the playground, and I'll be moving there, too, on my next birthday. That's when I will become a teenager. When I first arrived at SOS Village, I was little and scared. I really missed my mommy. So my big brother and I kept running away, even though we had nowhere to go. Now I know better. I can read well, do my math problems, and play action games on the computer. Plus I am a wing on the football team. We are not kept confined to this place. Mama Letmad helps us visit our grandfather, aunts and uncles. For my big sister's wedding, two months ago, we all got new clothes and went out for a three-day party. That was fun and it was good to get back to our bungalow and tell our friends all about it. My very favourite sport of all is swimming. Sometimes the teachers paddle a rowboat out in the Mediterranean, so we can jump out and race 100 meters back to shore. I'm one of the fastest swimmers, and I always work up a big appetite in the sea air. Mama's eggplant and tomato dishes are very tasty, but what I like the very best is chopped salad, with tomatoes, cucumbers, and lots of lemon juice. (Not too many onions.) We are so grateful that SOS village receives these big crates of food every week from Care and ECHO. Thank you very much!" end. Blogspot Link: http://carewbg.blogspot.com/2008/11/rafah-orphans-keep-strong-with-gaza.html