The Maher Center for Children is a Palestinian non-governmental, non-profit organization dedicated to supporting children with cancer and their families. The Maher Center focuses on the non-medical needs of children and their families by providing them with emotional, psychological, informational and social support regardless of religion, political affiliation, race or nationality, in accordance with International Humanitarian Law and the Convention on the Rights of the Child. Since 2004, over 95 children have benefited from the services of The Maher Center. Maher Center aims to improve the level of performance of both children, families and community facing cancer disease through contributing fulfilling the children rights.
 

Our History

MAHER Center was established in mid-2003 by Yahia Abu Sharif after his son, Maher, suffered from cancer for one year and died at the early age of 12. During Maher’s illness, the Abu Sharif family sadly discovered that there were no emotional or academic support services for their child, nor did anyone help the family deal with how Maher’s illness was affecting them. Yahia Abu Sharif established MAHER CENTER to fill that need. MAHER CENTER started to work, without any funding, thanks to the unconditional and enthusiastic hard work of a group of young Palestinian volunteers from the Jerusalem and Bethlehem areas. We began to work with the Al-Hussein Public Hospital in Beit Jala near Bethlehem because it is one of only two hospitals in West Bank that specializes in children’s oncology. The Al-Hussein Hospital serves one and a half million people living between the central and Southern areas of the West Bank (part of the Jordan Valley, Jericho, and Ramallah, Bethlehem and Hebron governorates). MAHER Center also enlisted the support of the Hadassah Ein Kerem Hospital in West Jerusalem, where Maher was treated. Since 2003, we have offered services to children at these two hospitals as well as the Augusta Victoria Hospital in East Jerusalem.

MAHER Center is sustained by volunteers and private donors and does not receive any public funding. The main office is near the Al-Hussein Hospital in order to have easy access to the patients. The hospital has very generously provided a room on the children’s ward for use by the Center, which in turn provides educational and recreational materials. Children with cancer often cannot attend regular schools due to their depressed immune systems that make them vulnerable to infections. The Center gives them the opportunity to continue their studies while they are in the hospital. In addition, the children need to play even when they are sick, perhaps especially when they are sick.

Our Mission

MAHER Center's mission is to protect the rights and be the voice for children and adolescents who have cancer. The Convention on the Rights of the Child dictates that all children have a right to education, recreation, and health care. MAHER CENTER dreams of a world where children with cancer have the same rights and opportunities as other children.

The Center strives to make the lives of children with cancer as normal as possible, to minimize their suffering, and to maximize their educational and recreational opportunities. Support is also provided to the survivors of cancer, who are sometimes affected emotionally and physically by different disabilities. Some of these survivors are actively volunteering in MAHER CENTER.

MAHER Center also provides support to families. Families often do not understand their child’s illness, do not know what to tell their child, or are afraid to allow their child to participate in normal activities. During prolonged hospitalization for a child in treatment, parents confront many emotional and financial difficulties, including travel to visit with their child or weeks spent by their child’s bedside while the rest of the family must manage without them. Traveling back and forth to visit a hospitalized child is even more challenging in Palestine because of the prolonged military occupation. The Maher Center tries to help families deal with the many stresses associated with having a child with cancer.

Our work also extends into the community, where MAHER Center advocates and educates about the needs of the children with cancer.

Through our work we strive to empower and develop the individual, the family and the local community. We are committed to teamwork and collaboration with other groups and institutions that are also dedicated to helping children with cancer.