Infant care for migrants

One of the big dilemmas for migrant mothers is where to leave their under 3 year old infants when they have to go to work. Most migrant mothers work long hours and cannot stay with their infants. When the child turns three he or she can frequent the municipal kindergartens and later schools but until the child is 3, there are no public structures that take of infants. Unitaf was founded in order to deal with this issue. Unitaf runs various structures for infants and young children including three large crèches. See the Unitaf site here

On September 14, 2014, a mini infant crèche was founded at Our Lady Woman of Valor Pastoral Center in Tel Aviv in collaboration with Unitaf. The unit is run by Sister Dinesha from Sri Lanka of the Sisters of Perpetual Help. The crèche accommodates six toddlers (three Eritreans, two Filipinos and an Indian).

Father Michael, the priest-in-charge at the Our Lady Woman of Valor Center wrote the following report:

"Play.. pray.. eat.. sleep..

The door bell rings at around 7 am in the morning. Adelle, Ashley, Israel, Sinai, Tyler and Dijan are being brought by their parents to the crèche. This is their time to play, to pray, to eat and to sleep without their parents. Parents leave their child because they need to work hard and long hours. The children are separated from their parents and they are being taken care of here in the crèche. They play with one another, laughter can be heard, forgetting their parents for a while. Starting with the sign of the cross, they then say "thank you Jesus for the food, amen". Then they eat happily. Afterwards, they will have their blankets and beds ready for them to sleep. They will wake up around 2 or 3 pm then play again. 2 hours later, at around 5 pm the door bell begins to start ringing again. They are all excited because they know they will be fetched one by one. They know they will be seeing their parents again."

A similar small crèche is also now functioning in Saint James Vicariate in Jerusalem under the able administration of Sister Claudia Graziano.