The Canadian Companions of Jerusalem was never structured as a money-raising organization, their chair the Rev. Patricia Kirkpatrick says.
The Companions are a national voluntary community within the Anglican Church of Canada that seeks to accompany, in prayer and pilgrimage, the Episcopal diocese of Jerusalem, which encompasses Israel, Palestine, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon. Kirkpatrick says they have always seen their main role as providing moral support to the church in the Holy Land.
Then the war in Gaza happened. “People were so shocked with the extent of the devastation … Day after day after day, you see this pulverizing going on,” Kirkpatrick says. “It does things to the morale.” The Companions of Jerusalem, she says, began looking for ways to help people in Gaza beyond offering thoughts and prayers.
On May 23, 2025—Jerusalem and the Holy Land Sunday, the Anglican Church of Canada’s annual day to teach about and support the ministries of the diocese of Jerusalem—the Companions launched their “Educate a doctor” campaign to raise $125,000 for a pediatric rehabilitation specialist at the Jerusalem Princess Basma Centre (JPBC), an Anglican clinic and school for children with disabilities. Seven months later, they reached their fundraising goal.
“It just took off,” Kirkpatrick says of the campaign. “By the grace of God, we got the money … I think [Gaza] was on everyone’s heart.”
The money will support 18 months of training for a rehabilitation pediatrician, with the JPBC having already identified a doctor and secured a place at a teaching hospital, Sheba Medical Center in Tel Aviv, Israel. Violette Mubarak, general director of the JPBC, says the doctor—who holds Palestinian identification documents and was required to pass the Israeli medical licensing exam to start his training—has passed the exam and began the required preparatory period at Sheba in early 2026. His first day of in-residence training was scheduled for March 1.
However, due to ongoing war and Israel’s declaration of a state of emergency after its joint attack with the United States on Iran, the training has been temporarily suspended. On March 31, when this article was written, Mubarak said the JPBC was monitoring the situation to request the resumption of the doctor’s training as soon as possible.
War causes major increase in disabilities among children
A pediatric rehabilitation doctor leads the assessment process at JPBC by identifying each child’s needs, referring them to the appropriate services and ensuring continuity and quality of care at all levels. Currently JPBC relies on its medical director, one of the few pediatric rehabilitation specialists in Palestine. In addition to his clinical role, he is vital in securing medical permits for children to access care in Jerusalem since the Palestinian Authority recognizes JPBC as a primary referral pathway.
Investing in the training of a second pediatric rehabilitation specialist, Mubarak says, “is not only critical for sustainability, but essential for growth.” The JPBC receives children from Jerusalem and the West Bank, while its satellite unit in Gaza receives children from Gaza City and the surrounding area.
In 2025 alone, JPBC’s pediatric rehabilitation specialist assessed and referred 1,494 children and supported the treatment of about 500 children at their Child Rehabilitation Centre in Jerusalem, both as day patients and as inpatients from the West Bank. He also supervised clinical practice at the Gaza satellite unit, where 782 children received urgent rehabilitation services, Mubarak says.
Gaza is now the territory with the most child amputees per capita in the world in modern history, according to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East. Mubarak says there has been “a significant increase in all types of disabilities among children, including complex and chronic conditions that require long-term, specialized rehabilitation.”
UN agencies reported in January 2025 that since the onset of the Israel-Gaza war in October 2023—and what a UN special committee identifies as a genocide committed by Israel against Palestinians in Gaza—tens of thousands of children had been injured. UNICEF the same month estimated that 3,000 to 4,000 children had had one or more limbs amputated.
Fundraising campaign strikes chord among Anglicans
The spark for the “Educate a doctor” campaign came from Archbishop Linda Nicholls, former primate of the Anglican Church of Canada. In early 2025, then-primate Nicholls spoke with Mubarak at a conference of global Anglican women leaders and asked what they could do to support the JPBC. Mubarak identified their longtime goal of hiring a second pediatric rehabilitation specialist, and Nicholls approached Kirkpatrick to ask if the Companions of Jerusalem could sponsor a fundraising campaign.
“It came at a brilliant moment when people, I think, had had enough of sitting around not knowing what to do and actually were now wanting desperately to have some kind of an impact that would be significant in Gaza,” Kirkpatrick recalls.
The campaign “struck a chord … People saw that it was perhaps feasible, but more than that, they dug deep into their pockets.” The Companions reached out “person by person and event by event,” she says, garnering many small donations and some large ones.
Kirkpatrick points to one instance of young people raising $1,300. She also wrote to the House of Bishops and found support from bishops for the campaign. St. Francis of the Birds, one of two congregations in Morin-Heights, Que. where she serves as priest in charge, with just 24 people, raised over $3,000 on Jerusalem and the Holy Land Sunday. “They don’t normally partake in these kinds of events of money raising … but this one hit,” Kirkpatrick says.
“Educate a doctor” ended up surpassing its $125,000 goal. The Companions of Jerusalem used the extra money to launch another fundraising campaign around this year’s Jerusalem and the Holy Land Sunday on May 17. The money raised will be used to renew the laundry facility at St. Luke’s Hospital in the West Bank city of Nablus, another ministry of the Episcopal diocese of Jerusalem. Donations will pay for laundry equipment that will provide clean, sanitized bed linens, towels, gowns, uniforms and surgical drapes to prevent the spread of infection and ensure the safety of patients and health-care workers.
‘We believe in the future, we believe in the children’
Acknowledging the risk of death and destruction facing health-care workers and institutions in the region, Kirkpatrick says that the Companions of Jerusalem fundraising campaigns are “a way of saying we believe in the future, we believe in the children, and we want to do something of substance for them.”
Mubarak says the JPBC “continues to operate under extremely challenging conditions amid the ongoing war and its devastating humanitarian consequences,” with the impact felt on all areas of their work through movement restrictions, economic instability, increased demand for services and the psychological toll on staff and the children and families they serve.
In this context, she says, the ongoing support of Anglicans—both within the Episcopal diocese of Jerusalem and internationally, including Canada—is essential to the ongoing function and stability of the centre.
“Their commitment enables us to continue providing life-changing services, retain skilled staff, invest in specialized training, and respond to emerging needs, particularly in fragile areas such as the West Bank and Gaza,” Mubarak says. “It also offers a sense of solidarity and reassurance to our teams and the families we serve—that they are not alone, even in the most difficult times.”
With the sustained support of Anglicans, she says, “we are able not only to endure, but to continue making a meaningful and lasting difference in the lives of children with disabilities and their families … We are truly grateful for the support of the Canadian Companions of Jerusalem and all partners who made this campaign a success. The impact of this initiative will be both immediate and long-term for the children and families we serve.”
