Ali is a 12 year old boy from Yaabad, Palestine, who is fighting leukemia. Every week, his mother Samehara takes him to the hospital for testing. Because the kind of medical treatment Ali needs isn't available in Palestine, he must go to an Israeli hospital -- and that poses problems.
Palestinian patients with serious conditions, like Ali, can obtain special permission to receive treatment in Israel. They are not, however, allowed to drive their own vehicle past the checkpoints. A taxi, which would cost at least $150 U.S. dollars, isn't a viable option.
To help Palestians like Ali, an Israeli man named Yuval Roth began Road to Recovery. His organization uses volunteer drivers to transport Palestinian patients to Israeli hospitals.
Yuval's reason for helping is simple. "If we won't help them, they won't get to the hospital."
In the above video from "Operation Change," a new series on OWN, Yuval explains that his brother's tragic death in the Israeli-Palestine conflict propelled him to start his organization. "My disaster, the death of my brother, caused me to understand that we don't have time. If we really want a real change, we have to every day do something to end the occupation, to make the change," he says.
To date, Road to Recovery has assisted over 400 Palestinian families. The organization's volunteer drivers have traveled over 125,000 miles transporting patients and have made more than 2,000 hospital trips.
"Yuval is an amazing person who cares a lot about humanity," Ali's mother Samehara says. "I respect him a lot and he does not care about where we come from. We never discuss politics or our differences and he treats Ali like his own son."
"Operation Change" airs Mondays at 10 p.m. ET on OWN.
