On Saturday 6 September, Brisbane united together with Muslim Charitable Foundation, Muslim Aid Australia and Al-Imdaad Foundation for humanitarian relief efforts in Gaza at the Islamic College of Brisbane.
Over $100,000 was raised on the day to support the relief efforts to alleviate the suffering caused by the most recent conflict in Gaza.
The ongoing attacks resulted in massive destruction to infrastructure in the area, including water plants. Thousands of families in the Gaza Strip have been affected by the impacts of this civil unrest and access to clean water has become very difficult. In any other circumstance the construction of general water wells would have addressed this issue. However due to groundwater pollution from high levels of chloride the decision was made to develop a long-term solution. This involved building a desalination plant to purify the water as means of overcoming the water shortage.
The construction phase of the project will take approximately five months to complete with the agreement to further provide the ongoing maintenance for next two years. It is estimated that an astonishing 50,000 people will benefit from this endeavour with the aim to produce 250,000 litres of clean water per day. The estimated cost of this project is approximately $230,000.
Once the plant has been constructed, the water truck will be used to transport the clean water to surrounding areas in Gaza. This will ensure that this much needed resource is well distributed and reaches as many people as possible.