Paul Calvert spoke with Poive Mumba

Poive Mumba at a Graduation Ceremony

The 2009 war in Gaza began on January 3rd with an Israeli ground invasion and lasted just 15 days. We can all remember the news coverage and protests that took place, but how many of us have considered the effect of war on the young and given any thought to the Palestinian people since the war ended? Paul Calvert caught up with Poive Mumba, a lady who's given her life to helping the Palestinians; a humanitarian worker, caring for children mentally traumatised by the conflict.

Paul: Poive what sorts of work have you been doing in Gaza?

Poive: I am doing humanitarian aid with action by churches together. The organisation is Act International. We have five members to the organisation in Gaza; Church Aid, Near East Church Council and we have one hospital and we have baby and mother clinics. We also work with Palestinians who live in the refugee camps and psychological/social programmes with all these five members and schools too.

Paul: Now you have been working with the psychological side of things in the Gaza Strip, what sort of things have you been doing?

Poive: My work is to establish psychological/social programmes for our Acts members. We are doing that with the children at school and also the patients in the hospital.

Paul: Israel had a war in the Gaza Strip last year, are many of the children affected by the war situation that happened there?

Poive: I think that everybody is affected with this war situation. We have been very concerned for our staff even because they have been working for 24 hours, but also all families and all children are affected with what happened. We started with our staff care workshop we have 200 staff there.

Paul: What sort of signs do the children display from difficulties that they have experienced through the war?

Poive: Mostly they cannot sleep and they are very afraid and one of the worst things is many of the children were at school when the bombings happened, so they are very afraid to go to school. Some children were at home when the bombings happened so the children have lost their safe place. There was no safe place for them during the war that took place.

Paul: What sort of things did they experience?

Poive: Oh many things and many awful things have happened to them; they have seen big houses collapse because of bombing, they have seen people killed on the road and some haven't been able to find their family. They have spent hours and hours alone waiting for their family to come back from somewhere.

Paul: Have many children lost loved ones in the war?

Poive: Yes, there are many children.

Paul: So how does this act out in society, how do they react to what they've seen?