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UN welcomes funding to help run summer recreation initiative

UN welcomes funding to help run summer recreation initiative

Children race into the sea near Gaza City
The United Nations agency that helps Palestinian refugees has welcomed a €2 million donation by the European Union to help fund the agency’s Summer Games, an annual recreation programme that allows children to take part in sports, drama, arts and crafts and other activities.

John Ging, the Director in the Gaza Strip for the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), described the donation as “generous and timely,” according to a press release issued by the agency yesterday after a visit to Gaza by EU Vice President Catherine Ashton.

Mr. Ging said the finding would be “invaluable for our joint efforts [with the EU] to bring about the positive development of the next generation of Palestinians who are otherwise in danger of becoming a lost generation.”

During the summer UNRWA also runs a learning programme that provides two months of intensive remedial education for 40,000 children who failed their end-of-semester exams.

The donation from the EU will be distributed to the Summer Games initiative and UNRWA’s enterprise resource planning, a tool to help modernize the agency’s operations.