PRCS Volunteers in Al Fawwar Refugee Camp: Between a Rock and a Hard Place

Al-Bireh – Bilal Al Mi’ewi is a PRCS volunteer in Al Fawwar refugee camp, located to the south of Hebron. Over the past weeks, Bilal and his colleagues had to fight a new invisible enemy which spread rapidly in the camp: COVID-19. With the Israeli occupation on the one hand and COVID-19 on the other, PRCS volunteers are now caught between a rock and a hard place. In addition to catering to local needs arising from Israeli army incursions, bullets and tear gas canisters, they now have to think about, and prepare ways to face, their new invisible enemy.

Following a few days of training by the Palestinian Ministry of Health and UNRWA, they are now assisting the Ministry, and mainly its Preventive Medicine teams, in collecting COVID-19 samples.

Bilal Al Mi’ewi coordinates the Al Fawwar PRCS Volunteers Committee which was created in 2015. It comprises 60 volunteers and oversees a number of auxiliary committees, such as the Friends of PRCS Committee.

According to Bilal, “when the Coronavirus started spreading, an Emergency Health Committee mainly manned by PRCS volunteers was set up. The Committee assigned doctor and nurse volunteers to help MoH teams collect COVID-19 samples. In the meantime, PRCS volunteers were trained by Preventive Medicine and UNRWA staff. As soon as their training ended, and with the spread of COVID-19, they started assisting in collecting samples under the supervision of the head of the camp’s Emergency Committee. 12 PRCS volunteers seconded by 40 auxiliary volunteers have already helped collect 600 samples in the camp. So far, two camp residents have died while sixty others have tested positive for COVID-19”, he said.

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