Occupied Palestinian Territories

Background

• In the West Bank, a total of 722,302 individuals are registered as refugees with the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine, of which 186,479 reside in one of 19 official Palestine refugee camps.
• The security situation in the West Bank is dangerous and unpredictable. Several thousand people have been killed in terrorist incidents and military operations in recent years. There are severe restrictions on the mobility of Palestinians living in the area.
• A large portion of the existing infrastructure within the refugee and non-refugee communities has been destroyed, and the economy has become exceptionally vulnerable with over 66% of Palestinians living in poverty, a 30% increase over 2005.
• There has been a 40% decline in Gross Domestic Product and unemployment has doubled since 1999.

What We Do

In order to adequately address the challenges faced by Palestine refugees and disadvantaged children in the occupied Palestinian territory, Right To Play programming targets children and youth living throughout the West Bank including the areas of Jericho, Ramallah, Hebron and Nablus. Through partnerships with various organisations throughout the West Bank, Right To Play is able to negotiate private play spaces for girls and women. Right To Play programs, when implemented in refugee and disadvantaged communities and schools, enhance healthy child development through the attributes shared by both sport and social cooperation: respect, teamwork, patience and empathy.

So Far

We regularly work with approximately 20,000 children per week, including nearly 500 disabled children. We also have community outreach programs that work in the more remote areas in the oPt so as to reduce regional inequality of opportunity.