Supporting Students and Families
Soliman Abu Taima is 21 and disabled. Living at the family home in Al Qarara, an isolated, disadvantaged and remote area in the South of the Gaza Strip. Soliman was awarded an Al Fakhoora Scholarship in 2011. Currently he is in his fourth year studying ‘Special Education and Rehabilitation’ at the Red Crescent College in Khan Younis.
Local partner, YMCA paid a visit to Soliman’s family and has identified an extremely poor household with a limited income of $100 a month. Using the Sustainable Livelihood Approach and Poverty Score Card to assess the family resources and expertise, the family expressed an interest of investing in sheep breeding using the rural spaces in their surroundings.
Early in 2012, the family was granted a sheep-breeding project award and was given nine sheep to begin growing business.
Soliman’s mother, Watfa, 63, stated “Since we received the sheep, we have been taking care of them, raising them and then trading. I cannot figure an exact income, but we’ve seen at least an increase of $250 in addition to the $100 we have been receiving from the Ministry of Social Affairs.”
Watfa finished, “All of us take care of the sheep even my husband, Ahmed, who is already 70 years old, and hasn’t been working for years.”
