British embassy in Damascus donates prosthetic devices to Jaramana center

The Charge d'affairs of the British embassy in Syria, Paul Whiteway, visited the UNRWA-sponsored Community Rehabilitation Center in Jaramana, a town on the outskirts of Damascus camp, on January 7 and presented 25 prosthetic devices donated by the embassy to disabled Palestine refugee children.

The donation included wheelchairs, hearing aids, carriages and medical shoes and was made through UNICEF.

Thanking the British embassy and UNICEF for its generous support, the director of UNRWA affairs in Syria, Angela Williams, said "The donation testified above all to the initiative of the Palestinian community in Jaramana to improve the lives of children with disabilities." She also thanked the General Authority for Palestine Arab Refugees (GAPAR) for their encouragement of the program.

UNRWA, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, provides education, health and social services to 3.5 million Palestinian refugees, of whom some 370,000 live in Syria.

UNRWA in Syria sponsors five community rehabilitation centers which are run by locally-recruited committees and rehabilitation workers. The committees are engaged in raising community awareness of the needs and rights of the disabled, providing basic rehabilitation and referral services, and integrating refugees with disabilities into the life of the community.

The ceremony held for this purpose was attended by the representatives of UNICEF and GAPAR and included songs, dances and other entertainment activities.