Created in 1960, Terre des hommes is a Swiss non-governmental organisation committed to protecting children’s lives and their rights, and improving their well-being. Their programmes focus on health, migration and access to justice. We spoke to Shadi Jaber, who joined Terre des hommes (TDH) almost two years ago as a Child Protection, Mental Health and Psychosocial Support Specialist for the Jordan and occupied Palestinian territory (oPt) delegations. He is a trained social worker and psychologist from Jerusalem with 25 years of experience working with children and vulnerable people.
Humanitarian aid in the West Bank – the vicious cycle of conflict
In the West Bank, where violence is at an all-time high, services such as the ones TDH offers form a crucial aspect of the humanitarian response. As Shadi explains, “when there are home demolitions, a home invasion, someone killed within the family or injured, we need to go and visit the family. We should do psychological first aid within 72 hours to ensure there are no strong indicators for psychological distress. Based on our findings, we decide if we have to go through other steps”. TDH works with affected communities to raise awareness on mental health and provide additional support when needed. “One of the activities that we do is called “support group” where (usually) women come to participate in 10 sessions for 15 women and they start to deal with their psychological issue. For example, to learn how to breathe and deal with their stress. But sometimes, some of them don’t like to be in groups or they have something private that they can’t share or something serious. We have two alternatives. One is to do case management through a social worker – analysis of the situation, identifying the needs and put a plan to connect this woman with different services. Or we have individual counselling where a psychologist provides counselling for 6 to 10 sessions and gives the space to speak about the psychological situation and think about how she can deal with her situation.”
“My day is about dealing with the checkpoint”
A 2022 World Bank study revealed that 50% of the adult population in the West Bank screened “positive for depression”. While mental health needs are massive, the same context that creates the needs for such services also makes their delivery difficult. Movement restrictions are a major challenge, as Shadi explains. “For our work in the West Bank, we travel to Hebron, Jenin, Nablus, some areas in Jerusalem. But it’s not easy to travel. We need to think about settlers, attacks, closed roads, checkpoints all the time.” Such logistical and security concerns aren’t unique to TDH. All humanitarians face them, sometimes incurring delays in delivering the much-needed emergency aid or even putting their lives at risk. But the context doesn’t only impact the timeliness of aid delivery, it also has consequences on the quality of services provided. “In this field, you need to do a lot of training, supervision and coaching to make sure that people who work with children, women, vulnerable people are well-trained. We need to go to the field and visit them to see through our eyes what’s happening to make sure that appropriate approaches are in place. But to be honest with you, we can’t do it all the time.” As a humanitarian working in this context, Shadi faces these challenges on a personal level too. The Qalandiya checkpoint which Shadi has to cross twice every day makes him lose up to 4 hours of his day. “With work, it’s easy – I’m trained to be a social worker and a psychologist. With the checkpoints there are so many things that happen every day. People are angry. The soldiers are angry. The checkpoint could be closed or could be open. You need to have alternative ways. So you have this on your mind all the time.”
Shadi’s account shines a light on the difficulty of operating in the oPt and the importance to ensure timely and unrestrained access for humanitarian organisations in order to provide quality services for people in need.
