Support association

Who we are

Everything you need to know about our support association – from its origins to its current direction.

Tor zum Leben – Lifegate Rehabilitation e.V.

Name is program

Lifegate Rehabilitation wants to open doors to life for people with disabilities! In accordance with our Christian-diaconal orientation, we are convinced that every person deserves the chance to be supported and to take their personal and medical development into their own hands.

That is why we actively and sustainably support the work in Beit Jala / in the Palestinian territories. And because we believe that all this works best when people’s origin, religion and political views are not decisive, we build bridges across existing borders.

Tor zum Leben – Lifegate Rehabilitation e.V. supports the work of Lifegate Rehabilitation in Beit Jala and facilitates encounters between Palestinian and Israeli people and religions. We want to make a sustainable contribution to a long-term and peaceful coexistence between the two peoples living in the same country.

Year of foundation

Members

Our history

In the late 1980s Burghard Schunkert founded Lifegate Rehabilitation as an institution for children and young people with physical disabilities in the Palestinian territories. He and his team of volunteers from Germany and the Palestinian territories developed a holistic concept:

Lifegate wants to open doors to life and show perspectives that enable people with disabilities to live more independently.

Volunteers and young people with disabilities lived together in residential groups, and medical work developed. Education was a top priority in the Lifegate Rehabilitation training workshop. The aim of the work was to enable the young people to live independently in their home environment.

While Lifegate Rehabilitation was heavily influenced by volunteers and people doing alternative service from Germany in the early years, more and more local specialists were gradually trained and deployed on a long-term basis.

As a result, the work of Lifegate Rehabilitation grew and became more professional. Since moving into the new Lifegate building in Beit Jala in summer 2012, Lifegate Rehabilitation has been one of the most modern facilities for supporting people with disabilities in the Palestinian territories.

In 2018, Lifegate Rehabilitation took over a guest house in Bethlehem and opened “Lifegate Garden”, an inclusive home where people with and without disabilities are welcome and work together.

At the beginning of the 1990s, the question of financing and support for the team on site arose. After their return, volunteers founded the association in Würzburg in April 1993.

Tor zum Leben – Lifegate Rehabilitation e.V.

Today, the association has around 250 active and supporting members who support Lifegate Rehabilitation in Germany and locally through practical work or donations.