Mission Moment: YWCA of Palestine – Jalazone Kindergarten and Community Center

 What better way to support a more sustainable and hopeful future than to support and educate future generations? The YWCA of Palestine, a United Church of Christ partner through Global Ministries and supported by One Great Hour of Sharing, has engaged local Palestinian communities since 1893. Today, it offers programs of economic empowerment, women’s rights, youth leadership, and children’s education. An example of the latter is the YWCA’s nursery schools and kindergartens in refugee camps, schools that the YWCA has run for decades. In addition to regular classes, the YWCA offers skill-based camps such as photography and sports, as well as other extracurricular activities at its schools. In the occupied Palestinian West Bank, roughly one-fourth of the 900,000 Palestinian refugees registered with the United Nations live in 19 refugee camps. The YWCA kindergarten in the Jalazone Refugee Camp near Ramallah is a sign of hope for a community that has endured over 75 years of displacement.