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| The fogg blowing in from the north |
At Balata Refugee
Camp, a UNAR refugee camps estblished oafter the displacment of
Palestinians in 1948, we visited the Jafa cultural center.
They serve the camp
which is 28,000 residents squeezed into 1 square KM. Since Oslo
things have been much worse. Before Oslo residents received regular
packets of food and clothes, there was better health care and
medicine. Now all those tings are in short supply. there is now 1
clinic with 2 doctor serving the whole camp. A worker at the center
took his mother to the doctor and time the visit – it was 49 second
long – but what can a doctor due when there is a great long line of
people waiting to be treated.
There are 2 boys
schools and 2 girls schools through 9th grade but class
sizes are 45 to 50 students. There is one social worker for 800
students. As a school administrator said the schools are no longer
suitable for study, it is all shouting and disruption. It is a bad
situation, these4 are families that lost everything, there is no
work, the kids are bored. Many of the lightly older generation are
highly educated but still have no work which makes it hard to
motivate they younger generation to even complete their school
The cultural center
offers many programs to try to support the camp:
a separate social
worker unit
a chorus
an orchestra
music lessons
theater
support for the
schools
a scout program has
100 scouts 50 female, 50 males
As we stood on top
of the cultural center over looking the camp and school were told
that the houses (3 floors or so) had on average 30 -40 people living
in them. And looked up at the settlement guard tower we were told
that during the intifada they did not use the roof space because
several people had been shot stand where we were.
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| Looking south from cultural cneter roof over one of Balata Camp school |
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| looking north |
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| looking east these houses average 30-40 people |
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| looking SE |
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| Looking west toward settlement and hearing that several people were shot right where we were |
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| Truck tire treads make good speed bumps |
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| a mural on the wall |
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| a woodburing representng the old passing on the stories to the young, the old man has his head resting on the land |
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