Personal Info
- Country of residence: Palestine
Information
In a small shop, the young man, Muhammad Al-Khalidi (30 years old), sits among his simple equipment and tools. To make hope, and fulfill the dream of many who lost their limbs in the Gaza Strip, whether during the successive wars waged by the occupation, or during traffic accidents, or congenital diseases since birth.
The wars waged by the occupation against the Gaza Strip increase from time to time the number of disabilities, which raises the demand for auxiliary tools and prostheses, which exhausts Palestinian families, who find it difficult to provide these tools due to their lack of availability and the poor resources of these families.
Al-Khalidi told Quds Press: "Like many young men in Gaza, after graduating from university, I did not find work or a job to support my family through, which prompted me to develop my skills and capabilities, until I was able at first to make some primitive or simple prostheses." .
He added: "I faced great difficulties at the beginning, especially since we live in the Gaza Strip under a blockade imposed by the occupation, and therefore there is a shortage of equipment and capabilities needed to manufacture prostheses, but I invested in the existence of some plastic environmental waste, and worked on treating it and using it later in my work."
Al-Khalidi, who studied "prosthetics and orthotics" and started his project at the age of 27, continues: "I manufacture some alternative medical devices for fractures, as the original devices are very expensive for the Gazan citizen who lives in a difficult economic situation."
Ahmed.. came back to life again
on his part; Ahmed Masoud, one of Al-Khalidi's auditors, said that he was injured in a car accident when he was young, which greatly affected his body, which led to weakness in his movement and difficulty in walking.
He added to "Quds Press": "When I heard about the young man Ahmed Al-Khalidi, and his ability to help me treat cases similar to mine, I went to him, and he followed me, along with the physiotherapist, until I reached a great degree of recovery."
Al-Khalidi explained the case of "Ahmed", saying that "he was suffering from immobility, so I designed a special device for his condition called the pelvic and foot support device (h kafo). He came back to life again."
Al-Khalidi aspires for his small shop to become a large center that produces more auxiliary tools. In order to be able to help as many patients as possible, "but this is not possible without supporters standing by me."
It should be noted that the number of unemployed people in the West Bank and Gaza Strip reached 383 thousand in the first quarter of 2021; By 228 thousand people in the Strip, and 155 thousand in the West Bank, according to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics.
University graduates in Gaza suffer from their inability to obtain a job in their majors, due to the continuous blockade since 2006, the continuous wars, the closure of crossings, and the targeting of factories by Israeli bombing.
Gaza universities and colleges graduate 40,000 annually, while the local market absorbs the equivalent of eight thousand job opportunities per year for graduates between the ages of 20 and 29, according to statistics from the Statistics Center.
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