West Bank: Bedouin Girl Speaks out …

 
Sharifa Deif Allah, 12 , is among the 35,000 people that receive food rations through an assistance programme for herder and Bedouin communities run jointly by WFP and UNRWA in the West Bank. She agreed to answer 10 questions about her life and hopes for the future.

1) Tell us about yourself.
I am 12 years old and I am from Fasayel in the Jericho Governorate. I’m in 7th grade and I live with my family in a house with two rooms.

2) What is the first thing you think about in the morning?
I think about my school day, what to wear, and what I will be eating for breakfast and for lunch.

3) Do you find it difficult to get enough food?
Yes it is. Usually when my father cannot find any work

4) How is WFP helping to make your life better?
WFP provides us with the food items we need, when my father cannot afford them.

5) What is your favorite food, and how is it cooked?
Rice and molokhiya (herbal soup with rice), I get it twice a year.

6) What’s your favorite subject at school, and why do you like it?
Arabic. Because it teaches me to express myself better.

7) What do you want to be when you grow up, and why?
I want to be a journalist. I want those that are better off to know about the needy ones, and help them.

8) What makes you happy?
When I see my father bringing us food and clothes.

9) Who are the most important people in your life and why?
My family, my mother and my father, my brothers and sisters.

10) What message would you like to give to other children around the world?
To live in freedom and to be able to eat healthy food. Not go hungry and grow up healthy.

 

Malnutrition Risk

According to a joint household survey carried out with UNRWA in 2010, food insecurity among herder and Bedouin communities in parts of the West Bank is as high as 55 percent. Sharifa’s family receives monthly rations composed of the following food basket: fortified wheat flour, pulses, vitamin A-enriched vegetable oil, iodized salt and sugar.

• Learn more about nutrition
• How does WFP fight malnutrition?

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