Huthayfa Shbair, 26, is a Palestinian lawyer whose upbringing instilled in him great respect for the legal profession. Huthayfa was drawn to defend human rights and fight injustice. However, his path to becoming a human rights defender was not without its challenges. Growing up in a culture that frowned upon interactions with women had limited his exposure to gender-related issues.

Through the HAYA Joint Programme funded by the Government of Canada, UN-Habitat, in partnership with the Ministry of Local Government and the Nablus Municipality, inaugurated the newly rehabilitated safe, inclusive, and accessible community garden for citizens in Nablus.

Ilham Edaes, a 28-year-old health worker in the West Bank, Palestine has been back to work, every day, since May, serving the hardest-to-reach communities through a mobile clinic that offers breast cancer screening. Edaes has a five-year-old son, Majd, who is growing up watching his parents share childcare and domestic chores – an unusual occurrence in the region, where domestic and unpaid care work is largely seen as women’s work.

In a Bedouin community in the Jordan Valley, 16-year-old Firyal lives without reliable access to health or education and her family must bring in water to their hamlet by tractor and cistern.  Her community, which was declared a military zone by Israel, suffers from frequent displacement due to training exercises and nearby explosions that disturb livestock and threaten their livelihood, and now Firyal is planning to document their lives through a film. “It is harder to...