Jerusalem

Augusta Victoria Hospital (AVH) is a center of medical excellence in East Jerusalem, serving all 5 million Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza. AVH has the following care centers and departments: The comprehensive Cancer Care Center, the Hematology and Bone Marrow Transplantation Center, the Kidney Care Center, specialized cancer surgery, the Specialized Centre for Child Care, the Skilled Nursing and Long-Term Care Facility, the Laboratory Medicine Department and the Diagnostic Radiology Department. AVH has an active community outreach to marginalized areas in the West Bank. In addition, the hospital is considered the leader of the Anti-Microbial Stewardship Initiative in the West Bank which aims to control infections in hospitals and to combat the resistance against anti-biotics due to overusage.

Augusta Victoria Hospital is accredited by the Joint Commission International for its outstanding quality. Over 90% of the patients currently treated at AVH are referred by the Ministry of Health of the Palestinian Authority and around 40% come from Gaza. AVH delivers all these aspects of care to around 7000 patients annually.

AVH Community Outreach Program 

Augusta Victoria Hospital has established unique community-based diabetes and breast cancer screening programs to address the huge national needs for high quality and comprehensive services within the Palestinian healthcare system. The programs embody the values, ethics, and moral commitments of the LWF/AVH toward the rights of the poor and the oppressed. Access to high quality, affordable, and dignified healthcare as a basic human right. 

AVH Mobile Diabetes Clinic 

The AVH diabetes team helps patients with the adoption of a healthier lifestyle, including physical activity and exercise, nutrition, weight control and smoking cessation.  

AVH Mobile Mammography Clinic 

Since 2009, the LWF has been providing a community-based breast cancer-screening program to support the preventive, screening, and curative services related to breast cancer in Palestine. The program assists women living in rural villages, refugee camps and areas where the needed services are not available.  The mobile program helps to ensure better access by providing the services closer to home. 

Access to health

Children from Gaza with cancer needing immediate referral and treatment in the Augusta Victoria Hospital experience long delays in obtaining the necessary Israeli permits and must reapply for each treatment session. Parents of Palestinian children with cancer also experienced delays and rejections in obtaining permits to accompany them for treatment.  The effect of the separation is both physically and emotionally harmful and has a negative impact on the healing process and life expectancy of the child. The team of AVH advocates for the immediate treatment of children with cancer and for the permit of a first degree relative. 

The Vocational Training Program (VTP), one of the LWF-Jerusalem’s oldest projects, has been providing vocational training to Palestinian youth since 1949. Originally, three-year training programs were offered in carpentry, auto-mechanics, and metalwork. The Lutheran Trade School was renamed the Vocational Training Center, and in 1964 the Center moved from the Augusta Victoria Campus to a new and larger facility just to the north of Jerusalem in Beit Hanina. In 2000, VTC Beit Hanina became a co-ed institution and began enrolling women in the profession of telecommunications 

The Vocational Training Program expanded in 2004, establishing the Vocational Training Center in Ramallah (VTCR) to ease access for trainees from the West Bank. In 2012, three new departments were opened: catering and craftwork departments in Beit Hanina and a vocational secretary department at the VTCR, significantly increasing the outreach to women. In 2021, a major new chapter in the history of the VTP started, as the Vocational Training Centre Ramallah was inaugurated. The center centralizes all VTC activities in the old School of Hope belonging to the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Jordan and the Holy Land, and work is still ongoing to convert the school into an innovative and inclusive VTC.

Gender-Responsive and Inclusive Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) in the West Bank (GRIT) 

In 2019, LWF Jerusalem and the Canadian Lutheran World Relief, with support from Global Affairs Canada, launched a new project to increase the vocational training enrolment and subsequent employment of women and women with disabilities across the West Bank. The project’s three pillars are focused around Improving Access, Improving Quality and Improving Systems, and it is being implemented through nine TVET institutes throughout East Jerusalem and the West Bank, including the two LWF VTCs. The ultimate objective of GRIT is to achieve improved and equitable learning and employment outcomes for 17,250 women and girls, including women with disabilities.  

LWF Jerusalem is responding to the need for affordable housing for Palestinian Christians by planning to build between 40 and 50 apartments on LWF land in Beit Hanina, Jerusalem. 

In line with its country strategy, LWF Jerusalem has developed a long-term ecological environmental conversion plan for the AVH hospital and the LWF campus in the field of environmentally friendly technology, to reduce greenhouse emissions such as a solar power generating systems, replacing fuel with cleaner energy, landscaping, waste and water management, greening the campus and environmental awareness programs.