Gaza empowered with electricity

Gaza is a city that has seen more than its fair share of destruction and deprivation; 8 years of the suffocating siege combined with 4 Israeli offensives between 2006 and 2014 have brought the Gaza Strip to its knees. Last summer’s attack was one of the worst. Nothing was spared by the Israeli army; residential areas, schools, hospitals and even a disability rehabilitation centre were targeted. The extreme power shortages in Gaza meant that doctors, health care providers and policymakers looked for a way to increase their independence from the notoriously unreliable power grid. What they wanted was to be empowered to care for their patients just like health care providers anywhere else. It was within this context that EmpowerGaza came about, embodying this objective.

One of the driving forces behind EmpowerGaza is Dr Tarek Loubani, an emergency room physician and assistant professor at Western University in Canada. He very kindly took some time out of his busy schedule to talk to MEMO about the project.

Dr Loubani has a history of supporting human rights in Gaza and has worked with Al-Shifa Hospital by taking physicians to teach local doctors advanced cardiac life support and advanced trauma life support; this is where the inspiration for EmpowerGaza came from. The use of solar power in Gaza has been demonstrated through a project at Al-Shifa, which is Gaza’s largest hospital. Loubani and the EmpowerGaza team looked at all of the hospitals with intensive care units and dialysis units, which were targeted for the first phase of this project: Al-Aqsa, Kamal Adwan, European Gaza and Rantisi Children’s hospitals all fit the bill.

The EmpowerGaza project was launched with the Indiegogo campaign to raise funds for the first pilot location – Al Aqsa Hospital – and has received huge support from doctors and health care providers in Gaza, as well as policymakers involved in the decision-making for health care, Dr Loubani told me. “Even the patients who have heard about the project are incredibly excited by how hard we are working to make it a reality,” he added. What makes EmpowerGaza unique in Loubani’s view is that it is “by Palestinians, for Palestinians” to ensure that they are able to meet the needs of Gaza’s sickest patients. “As such, all of the work installing and operating the system will be by locals living and working in Gaza.”

When asked why Gaza in particular is the focus of the project and not another part of Palestine where electricity is a major issue, Loubani explained that there are “excellent initiatives” to address the energy issues in other parts of the occupied territories. “However, while there are electricity problems in other parts, it is clear that the Gaza strip is in deep crisis, with patients losing their lives to the electricity shortage. Because of this, EmpowerGaza chose the Gaza hospitals as a priority.”

The project has yet to encounter any major obstacles, which Dr Loubani attributes to the fact that “people all over the world want to help Palestinian patients and are sympathetic to their search for the human right to have access to adequate health care.” The EmpowerGaza team have been overwhelmed and pleased by the positive response from across the world, with people contributing to the campaign from over fifty countries.

The biggest consequence of this project is the increase of reliability for doctors and patients. “It’s hard for people outside Gaza to imagine how devastating the power cuts are,” explains the Canadian physician. “Doctors rush through sensitive procedures for fear of the lights getting cut. It’s unacceptable, and it has to end.”

Many projects and initiatives struggle to flourish in Gaza due to the Israeli occupation and blockade as well as the bureaucracy. In addition, during last year’s attack on Gaza many projects were destroyed by Israeli bombs. I asked Dr Loubani what steps will be taken to ensure that EmpowerGaza can overcome such problems and sustain the project. He believes that its partnership with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) will ensure its success. The UNDP is presently the only organisation that is permitted to transport construction materials into the Gaza Strip. “As such, we are very optimistic that the project will be completed successfully. We have been working for over a year to ensure that it is a success, and our biggest obstacle now is funding the project so that we can start buying and installing the solar power modules.”

The EmpowerGaza team are optimistic that the project will develop further over the next few years, as they envision completing the remainder of the public hospitals in Gaza, a total of fourteen altogether. They are also hoping to expand the scope of the project so that it can cover more than the essential services and further reduce the energy needs of hospitals. The people of Palestine, especially those in Gaza, have suffered immensely at the hands of Israeli aggression and it is high time that they are empowered through something that the rest of the world enjoys; access to solar power.

Website : http://igg.me/at/EmpowerGaza

twitter: http://twitter.com/empowergaza

All project-related images can be found at the IGG site.