Islamic Relief teams are distributing survival items to help more than 455,000 vulnerable people get through the harsh winter season. The intervention is assisting people like Yasser, who lives in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.
“I have a heart condition, so I am not able to work and therefore we rely on social affairs and other aid to survive,” says Yasser, who lives with his wife and 5 children in a dangerously dilapidated house in Gaza.
“It has been hard living in my house. It didn’t have windows or doors and we were even afraid to move around the house as the ceiling could fall. There were too many cracks in it, this made us suffer from the extreme heat in the summer and the cold in the winter.”
Wintry weather meant more misery for the family, explains the 48-year-old.
“My family always suffers a lot in the winter. Cold air comes in everywhere, and when it rained the whole house would flood. I would spend the night moving around, making sure my children would stay warm. During the daytime, I would move from one hospital to another to get treatment for my children who got ill during the winter due to their poor immune systems.”
It was a worrying, exhausting way to live, Yasser adds, “This has made me so tired and worried and makes me feel sad for my children.”
But thanks to Islamic Relief, last year the father-of-5 was able to improve his family’s living conditions.
“Thank God for Islamic Relief’s winterisation project: it has allowed me to buy the tools needed for the house. Before I only had 3 mattresses between a family of 8, and now we have enough mattresses and blankets for all of us.
“Thank God, they have installed windows and doors, and worked on tiling the floor and repairing the cracks in the wall. I am optimistic that this winter my children will not drown from the rainwater flooding our home as they sleep.
“Through the Islamic Relief project, we were able to make so many repairs which will make our lives better this winter.”
