The Archbishop of Wales, Dr Barry Morgan, is appealing for more money to keep a mobile dental clinic on the roads of troubled Gaza, as the vital service continues to face the danger of collapsing following the recent violence in the area and lack of funds.
The mobile clinic, which has been funded by donations to the Church in Wales since 2000, travels around Gaza embossed with Welsh flags, treating more than 3,500 people a year who have little access to any health care facilities. It costs £15,000 a year to run but that sum looks set to rise as tension in the area grows and fuel costs soar.
Philip Morris, Archdeacon of Margam, oversees the funding of the mobile clinic and has visited it several times. He says that Gaza is a "land in chaos" and that the cycle of violence endured by its citizens over decades has been "horrific".
In Gaza, many inhabitants rely on local and international non-governmental organisations for basic health, education and occupational services.
The second largest NGO working in the largely Muslim Gaza is the Christian Near East Council of Churches, which runs family health clinics, vocational training centres, self-help co-operatives and the mobile dental clinic, funded solely by the Church in Wales.
"The dental clinic van, with its Welsh red-dragon stickers, is a familiar sight in Gaza City, and wherever it parks, men, women and children queue up outside it for treatment," says Morris.
In 2006, 3,508 people were examined by the dental clinic staff, and only 12 did not need any treatment. In addition babies and pregnant women were checked at the family health centres. All examinations, treatments and medicines are provided free of charge, thanks to donations from churches and individuals across Wales.
On the initiative of Dr Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Morris led a small group from the Church in Wales on a visit to the Holy Land in 1999 to identify projects which could be funded by the churches in Wales as part of its Millennium pledge to help those living in hopeless poverty or under the threat of constant violence and oppression.
The aim was to assist people in all parts of the world, but to start in the land of Jesus' birth to mark his 2000th birthday. The Jubilee Fund was set up and has since funded projects in Latin America, many parts of Africa and in China.
