How it all started
The Princess Basma Centre for Disabled Children on the Mount of Olives was founded in 1965, under the patronage of Princess Basma, the sister of King Hussein of Jordan, for the care and rehabilitation of physically disabled children.

At that time, there were few such organisations, but the need for services to disabled children was great.  The Centre has since become the National Resource and Referral Centre for disabled children all over the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

Current activities
The Centre has accommodation for 30 children and their mothers.  Children spend a minimum period of 1 week – 3 months at the Centre, for professional assessment of their disabilities and help with basic needs, and are provided with a rehabilitation programme which, when they return home, can be continued.

The Centre’s services are comprehensive, including all aspects of rehabilitation from physiotherapy, play therapy and occupational therapy, to hydrotherapy and special education.  An orthopaedic doctor holds a clinic at the centre once a week and refers those children who need orthopaedic operations to local hospitals in Jerusalem or Bethlehem.  A mobile dental unit and the St. John Eye Hospital (another of BibleLands’ Project Partners) provide free checks on children’s teeth and eyes.

Most of the children are referred to the Centre from other hospitals.  The majority are treated for free, although some of them are refugees and so are partly sponsored by the UN refugee agency, and a few families pay nominal fees.   A private section for up to eight women was started in 1986, for patients needing daily physiotherapy after strokes or accidents.  The fees received from these patients helps to pay some of the Centre’s expenses.  The women in this section often act as substitute mothers and grannies for those children whose parents are unable to stay at the Centre with them.

The Centre has a very well equipped Workshop, where the technicians make braces, artificial limbs, crutches and special boots for the children staying at the Centre, as well as for outpatients from across the country.  BibleLands contributed over £25,000 towards the recent re-structuring of this Workshop.

The Centre operates under a Community Based Rehabilitation Programme, in which the main aim is to integrate each child into their community.  While some children stay at the Centre for a relatively short time, others are there for several years, so the Centre has its own school for children up to the age of 12.  This school mainstreams physically disabled children with able-bodied children and was the first of its kind in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.  It has been so successful that it is currently expanding its intake to include a secondary section as well as the primary levels.  It is because of this school that the Palestinian Educational Authority made the mainstreaming of disabled students one of its policies.  This school has special classes for hearing impaired children, with all the specialist equipment needed to help them.  The school is recognised by the authorities and when children leave they can transfer easily to their local school.

The Centre also has a Vocational Training Department, where older children and adults are taught crafts such as basket making, knitting, embroidery and weaving, as well as other skills which will be useful in the community and will help them to live independently.

BibleLands has provided continuous support to this project since 1980, and Mrs Betty Majaj, the Director, is conscious that it is only through the grace of God, and the support of friends, that the Centre has been able to achieve so much over the years.