A pediatrician, public health expert and director of the Palestinian Happy Child Centre “PHCC”, Jumana Odeh is an acknowledged health leader in the Palestinian Occupied Territory. Commencing her medical service to the Palestinian people in 1981, Dr. Odeh chose not to go into private practice but rather to work for low wages at government hospitals in the West Bank, following this with seven years service as a hospital pediatrician at Augusta Victoria Hospital and then Makessed Hospital, the largest public hospitals in Jerusalem. Dr. Odeh next volunteered as a primary health pediatrician and project manager for the Union of Palestinian Medical Relief Committees, a well respected grassroots organization which focused on the delivery of medical services to hard-to-reach West Bank villages and communities. She followed this with three years employment as a team leader/pediatrician with Caritas Baby Hospital’s Rural Health project in the city of Bethlehem, then with two years as the director of the Women’s Mental Health project/Child & Family Consultation Center in Jerusalem. After this Dr. Odeh cooperated with UNICEF, participating in their national programming to improve the quality of medical care given to Palestinian children, following this with a series of consultancies with Western organizations, including Save the Children/USA, the Swiss Development Cooperation, the Australian Red Cross, OXFAM, the International Development Research Center/Canada, Medical Aid for Palestinians,”MAP-UK” and Belgian Technical Cooperation” BTC” – Jerusalem. During 1997 and 1998, Dr. Odeh was a visiting pediatrician in the Child Neurology Department at Sha’are Zadek Hospital in West Jerusalem. Next Dr. Odeh worked as a consultant for Norwegian People’s Aid, conducting an external evaluation at the Gaza Community Mental Health Programme. In 2000, Dr. Odeh joined the faculty of the School of Medicine & the School of Public Health at Al-Quds University as a lecturer, a position she continues to this day. In 2001, Dr. Odeh began a four year consultancy as Senior Child Health Advisor with MARAM, a public health project funded by Pricewaterhouse Coopers/USAid. In 2004, Dr. Odeh joined the Royal College of Pediatrics and Child Health in London as a child care advisor, a position she also holds to this day. And in 1994 Dr. Odeh founded and assumed the directorship of the Palestinian Happy Child Centre. Dr. Odeh was a founding member of the Union of Palestinian Medical Relief Committees, of the Palestinian Emergency Medical Service Council, of the International Federation of Health & Human Rights ”IFHHRO” & of Juzoor Foundation for Health & Social Development. She served as president of Physicians for Human Rights/Palestine and as a board member of Atta Services/Aid to the Aged.

Dr. Odeh has participated as an expert at more than 40 international workshops and conferences, and in numerous “evidence based” studies of the psychological impact of military occupation on children and youth. She is a frequent writer for the International Herald Tribune and for the Israeli newspaper, Ha’aretz, and has appeared as a child/health expert on Al-Jazeera, Abu Dhabi TV, CNN, BBC and Ted Koppel’s “Night Line.” Dr. Odeh has been recently selected as 2008 honoree of the World of Children Health Award, ”Children’s Nobel Prize”, to become the first Arab in receiving such an important Award. Dr. Odeh is married with two daughters.