Imad Afaneh lives in his two-room house, which was built next to many houses close to each other in the narrow streets of the Qalandia Palestinian refugee camp near Ramallah.
Mr. Afaneh is in his mid-thirties, married with two children. When he was 18, he had a fall accident while working and was paraplegic. With a broad smile, Afaneh, sitting on his bed, welcomed the members of the American Zakat Foundation for their visit and assistance to him.
According to the Zakat representative, Mrs. Magda Nabhan, who paid a field visit to Palestine, the citizens of the Qalandia refugee camp near the city of Ramallah need a lot of assistance due to the lack of medical supplies in the Social Rehabilitation Association in Qalandia, but unlike the majority, Mr. Afaneh wanted to return the wheelchair that was donated by the Qalandia Foundation. Zakat, explaining that he is satisfied with the chair that he has, because he does not want to rely on medical devices that require assistance from others.
Imad Afaneh explained that he cannot leave his home without the need to help a person carrying him to walk 20 steps in a narrow space to reach the entrance to his home, which burdens his family and friends. Saying, "I wanted to build an elevator in my house."
And God blessed Afaneh with a son only months after he was exposed to the painful accident, realizing at that time that his son when he got older would carry him in his heavy wheelchair to and from the house, then he realized that he had to find an alternative for all that hardship, so he asked others to help him build his own elevator At his home, but they told him that it was difficult to fulfill his request and they could not help him with that. They expressed surprise at the way in which the elevator will be built inside one of the cramped camp houses.
So Afaneh decided to buy the materials he needed to build his elevator in his home, and as a result Mrs. Nabhan, who was visiting his home, asked him about the way he built the elevator. I wondered if she had an elevator now !? And he answered and he seemed happy yes.
After Mrs. Nabhan asked to see the elevator, Afaneh's wife escorted her to the elevator, which is in the form of a box similar to the emergency exit in the event of fires that contains a platform, an entrance, a fence surrounding it from all directions, and a motor to move the platform up and down whenever he wants to exit. All that he requested, according to Nabhan, was the electric generator for the chair's engine, referring to the difficulty of building an elevator in a house that is not equipped for such additions, and which needs architects to put in advance plans before starting construction.
The strange thing is, according to Nabhan, that many people ask about many needs, but Afaneh did not ask about anything. Mr. Nabhan concluded her speech by saying that some great minds like Imad Afaneh need only resources.