WESTLAKE, Ohio — Nearly 6,000 miles from home, Northeast Ohio is helping heal the wounds of war for several Palestinian children.
Farah Isleem played with other children at a Westlake playground Monday. The 12-year-old’s first days in the U.S. have been a flurry of new faces, new language and new culture.
“It’s very pretty here,” Farah said in Arabic as her host mother Hoda Hamed translated.
She arrived Friday from her home in Gaza.
“She says her home is beautiful, but she has always a fear of war,” Hamed translated.
The Palestinian strip along the eastern Mediterranean Sea has been at the center of a Middle Eastern power struggle, where instability and conflict threaten to upend lives and families.
“They were sleeping. It was early in the morning, her mom was watching the news,” Hamed said of Farah’s recollection. “Then all of a sudden, without any warning, there were airstrikes and there were bombs hitting their house.”
The child lost part of her right leg in the 2021 airstrike.
“She’s hopeful and she’s wishing everything will get better soon,” Hamed said.
Farah’s hope has grown since she connected with the Palestine Children’s Relief Fund (PCRF). The Kent-based organization brings medical care to sick and injured Palestinian children who may not have access to adequate treatment or facilities near home.
8 year old Saleh, who also lost a leg to an airstrike, and 16-year-old Abdullah, who needed his leg amputated while battling childhood cancer, accompanied Farah to a PCRF welcome picnic at a Westlake Park Monday.
The children will be fitted for prosthetic legs in the U.S. before returning home.
“He’ll become more mobile. He’ll be able to become more independent and come and go. And he wants to be a soccer star,” Host father Khalid Bahhur translated for Abdullah.
Kent native and PCRF President Steve Sosebee started the organization shortly after graduating college in the late 80s.
“We have a lot of children waiting for treatment abroad and we have even more waiting for our missions to come in and treat these kids locally,” Sosebee explained.
Since its founding, PCRF has sent more than 2,000 sick and injured children for free medical care and sponsored hundreds of volunteer medical teams to treat tens of thousands of sick and injured young people in local hospitals.
“The people there, in general, suffer from every kind of ailment and condition you can imagine, whether it’s a result of the poverty… or more importantly, as a result of the political situation there which denies them freedom,” Sosebee said.
Farah will be fitted for a prosthetic in Akron, while Abdullah will go to Columbus and Saleh to Detroit for care. Dozens of Northeast Ohioans welcomed all three children with a picnic Monday.
“She wants them to know that a lot of children in Gaza are oppressed and a lot of them, like her, are waiting to get prosthetics done. And she wishes that they will be able to get prosthetics and be able to move as they wish,” Hamed said of Farah. “She’s going to walk better. And her life overall is going to be changed for the best.”
PCRF relies on community support to carry out its mission. You can learn more about the organization and how to help by clicking on this link.
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