An unprecedented humanitarian tragedy has been taking place in Gaza since last October. The conflicts that have been going on for almost a year are making the humanitarian conditions in Palestine even more inextricable.
The ongoing conflicts lead to the loss of innocent civilians' lives, displacement and destruction of their homes, as well as the collapse of infrastructure systems and disruptions in access to fuel, health services and food. In addition to all these, they lose their spouses, friends, relatives, in short, all their loved ones one by one in bombardments.
Gaza is experiencing much more than the images on the stage of history in the 21st century. In Gaza, where access to basic humanitarian needs is very limited, the cries for help are waiting to be heard more and more each passing day, while for the civilians who have lost their loved ones in front of their eyes, the gravity of the destruction is becoming even more mentally heavy.
Loss of life due to continuous bombardments, missing relatives, loss of livelihoods, etc. cause pain, shock and trauma that lingers in memories like a deep scar. For this reason, it is of great importance to protect the psychological and mental health of innocent civilians who are surviving and trying to hold on to life again.
International Blue Crescent Foundation (IBC), which has been closely following the conflicts from the very beginning and continues to provide relief to the region with great devotion, continues its moral support to innocent civilians in Gaza. Mental Health and Psycho-Social Support (MHPSS) project, implemented in cooperation with Americares, aims to improve the daily lives of conflict-affected civilians and increase their resilience by strengthening the availability, accessibility and quality of mental health services. In line with this goal, MHPSS project, implemented with the support of Americares, is enabling the establishment of peer support groups to enable the 2,000 participants to support themselves, their families and their immediate environment.
Within the scope of the project, IBC developed training materials on Psychological First Aid (PFA) with its local partner and organised awareness sessions in Al Nuseirat Camp, Khan Younis and Rafah as a first step. The beneficiary groups, each consisting of 18 to 20 people, included mothers and fathers with children over 8 years of age. With this activity, we touched the lives of approximately 900 people.
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Gaza, where the intensity of the conflicts increases day by day, continues to carry the pain that the eyes do not see and the ears do not hear to the pages of history. In order to alleviate the suffering of innocent civilians to some extent and to enable them to hold on to life as psychologically and mentally healthy individuals, MHPSS project, which we continue with Americares, is in high demand by the citizens of Gaza. In the feedback of the expert teams aiming to touch each person in the field, it is predicted that at least 25% of the participants will need further intervention and will be integrated into CBT-Exposure Therapy session and individual interventions.
As IBC, we will continue our moral support to the innocent civilians who have lost their loved ones in front of their eyes, who have witnessed the suffering of others, and who are trying to face their common fate together.
