Filipino women and their Palestinian spouses find hope in Metro Manila’s ‘Little Gaza’
- Several organisations are helping Filipino-Palestinian families resettle in the Philippines after they fled from war-ravaged Gaza
- The Philippine government has been criticised for lacking a crisis response programme to help Palestinian refugees
On Good Friday in Quezon City, hundreds could be seen flocking to the ‘Little Gaza’ neighbourhood to savour a range of dishes prepared by a group of Filipinos.
The Filipinos are married to Palestinian men and the money they earned from selling the dishes at the Little Gaza Kitchen event was their first income for a long time.
A collective called the Moro-Palestinian Cooperation Team organised the one-day event at Don Antonio Village, where the Filipinos and their Palestinian spouses are staying in a four-storey building affectionately known as “Little Gaza”.
In total, 69 men, women and children in 16 families live in “Little Gaza”. All the adults are unemployed and the children are not in school.
To help the families run their food booths at Little Gaza Kitchen, Nords Maguindanao and his fellow co-founders of the collective invited sponsors and collected donations to buy equipment and ingredients.