The Middle East Children's Institute

Middle East Children’s Institute (MECI) is a non-profit/NGO with affiliates in Switzerland, the USA, Austria, Jordan and Palestine and active programs in Jordan and the West Bank.

In 2005, venture philanthropist Lola Nashashibi Grace founded the Middle East Children’s Institute (MECI) to develop and implement programs for children in the Middle East who are victims of war, and to provide a network which facilitates partnerships with non-governmental organizations (NGOs) actively involved in the region. In the Middle East, traumatised by years of conflict, violence and poverty, MECI has proven that offering healing to children and empowerment to women opens the way to transformative education and hope for a better life for them, their families and communities.

Today MECI is an NGO which is recognized internationally for its innovative multifaceted, integrated programs addressing the most urgent needs of women and children. MECI provides holistic integrated child-centred community development education programs based on a grassroots approach and using local women as agents of change. For over ten years in the West Bank, MECI has directly engaged women and children within their programming efforts to sustain long-lasting community development that provides opportunities and hope for the new generation. MECI achieves this by addressing educational, psychosocial, health and other humanitarian needs to transform the lives of children and women, giving them opportunities to prosper. MECI has served tens of thousands of children and their families and is today implanting programs in 35 schools.