A helping hand for children

One non-profit organisation based in Palestine is working to establish chapters outside the territories.

Twenty years since it was first founded, the Palestine Children's Relief Fund (PCRF) holds on to its main objective — which is to provide Arab children, primarily Palestinian, the medical care they can't get in their home country.

The organisation tries to identify every Palestinian child in Palestine and in the diaspora, particularly in the camps in Lebanon, to get them the medical care they need.

While the main focus is Palestine, it is not exclusive. "If an Iraqi child is brought to me, I don't care if it's brought to me through an American soldier," said Steve Sosebee, chief executive officer and founder of PCRF, during a meeting of the PCRF chapter in Abu Dhabi last month.

"We don't care about the source of the child coming to us. We don't care if the child is Christian or Muslim, Shiite or Sunni, Kurdish or whatever. Our objective is to help that child based on their humanitarian needs and that's the principle this organisation was founded on."

The organisation's active UAE chapter has brought more than 51 children to the Emirates in the past four years. It is also working on bringing more children to the UAE in future.

It is one way of connecting the Palestinians inside the Palestinian territories with the Palestinians outside through a humanitarian cause, Sosebee said.

"We are all frustrated about the politics. We all feel angry about the Occupation. We all want it to end and we're all powerless to end it," he told volunteers in Abu Dhabi. "We can change the lives of those who have to endure it [Occupation]. It's our responsibility. It's your responsibility as Palestinians and it's my responsibility as a human being."

Weekend Review got the opportunity to talk to Sosebee about starting PCRF, the organisation's plans and the challenges it is facing today. 

How did you get involved in starting PCRF?

I had just finished college and started being active in Palestine. It didn't start with any kind of a long-term plan but with the idea that I wanted to do something for all the children I was seeing on an individual level, case by case. Over time it emerged into a much bigger effort where we were helping hundreds of thousands of children every year. 

Is your Abu Dhabi trip part of the Middle East trip?

I was in Qatar, Kuwait and Dubai. We've sent children to all those places. We're trying to build active chapters and strong support from the communities there to enable us to do more work and humanitarian relief efforts.

How has the response been so far?

In some places such as Kuwait and Dubai we've been going for a long time, so we've got lots of support. In Qatar, we are just starting the PCRF efforts there, so it's still in the early stages in finding help and support. Each place is different. It really depends on the community, on how much activity we've done there. Dubai is the easiest because we've sent so many children there so we're very well known, but we are always trying to do better and get more people involved. 

Eleven people from all over the Middle East have decided to climb Mount Kilimanjaro to raise money for the PCRF this February. Who is doing this and how much money do you hope to raise?

The trip to Kilimanjaro for PCRF was initiated by some people in Saudi Arabia and Dubai to generate interest and raise money for PCRF to enable us to do our work. We're trying to raise half a million dollars for our work in 2011. The trip will take place on February 17 for a week. We're hoping to raise the money as soon as possible because we need it to do our job. We hope people will support and sponsor the climb so we can send doctors to treat the children and send children to get treated. 

What is PCRF's target for 2011?

We would like to continue our efforts to help 2,000 to 3,000 children a year in highly specialised areas, in addition to building the cancer programme for children in the West Bank. We are trying to get more people involved in what we're trying to do to play a positive role in the health-care system and humanitarian needs of Palestinian children. 

How much funding do you need?

About a million dollars. 

How tough is it to raise that amount of money?

It's a challenge and it's tough because of the global economic situation and our inability to reach people who can make significant impact in this time of effort to raise money, and it's difficult to raise money for Palestine because people are so afraid it has a political agenda or has issues which are not related to humanitarian relief that they don't feel there are legitimate, honest and transparent organisations such as ours which can take their support and use it in a positive way on the ground.

We have to overcome that psychological barrier that people have towards donating to charities working in Palestine but we're improving that. It just takes a lot of time and effort.

There's been so much corruption with Palestinian politicians and charities that it's hard for us to come and show people that professional, transparent and effective organisations can work in Palestine. People have been burnt so many times that they just think that everybody is corrupt there, but that's not the case.

Visit www.PCRF.net to find how you can donate to the PCRF.