drew3000's Wishes

 

 

Past Wishes

The funds to represent Olympia in our sister city of Rafah.

The funds to represent Olympia in our sister city of Rafah.

  • By: drew3000
  • Amount: $10,000
  • Views: 586
  • Wish Points: 48.79

Please help me keep the sister city project between my hometown of Olympia, Washington, and Rafah, in Palestine, moving ahead.

"I ot;I should at least mention that I am also discovering a degree of strength and of basic ability for humans to remain human in the direst of circumstances - which I also haven't seen before. I think the word is dignity. I wish you could meet these people. Maybe, hopefully, someday you will."
- Rachel Corrie, in an email to her mother, February 28 2003.

People in Olympia, WA, and Rafah, Gaza, have been working on a sister city project since 2003 and have established fair-trade programs, pen pal relationships and coordinated events in both our communities. We're currently working on a project to link teachers in both Rafah and Olympia for coordinated English and Arabic language lessons in both places. As the president of the board of directors for the Olympia-Rafah Sister City Project (orscp.org), I'd like to be an Olympia delegate to Rafah this year and get things going. I'm also a certified teacher of English as a foreign language, so when our friends in Rafah sent us an email suggesting language learning exchanges I was really keen on the idea.

I'm going to be setting up the technology and training people on its use so we can coordinate the language project and others between Olympia and Rafah, but need to be there for a number of months to really get things going. This project has been incredibly important to a number of people in both our communities in recent years and shows how direct, grassroots connections can create trust and friendship that governments can't seem to foster.

Traveling in the Middle East and getting into Gaza can be time consuming and costly, but this will be my third trip to the region. I've quit my job, cashed out my 401(k) and spent my savings to help develop this project. I'm looking for help in reaching the stage that brings ORSCP goals into fruition.

Thanks.

- Andrew Ford Lyons
Olympia-Rafah Sister City Project

I'm including links for you to read more about the sister city project and what we're working on:

About the project:
[ link ]

Areas we work on:
[ link ]

Delegation 2007:
http://orscp

money to help keep the Life Maker center open in Rafah

money to help keep the Life Maker center open in Rafah

  • By: drew3000
  • Amount: $500
  • Views: 248
  • Wish Points: 144.51

If this wish gets the loot, I'll send it on to my friend Fida Qishta at the Life Maker Center in Rafah, Gaza, a community and educational center in Rafah, Gaza. I work with a sister city project between Olympia and Rafah. Life Makers is one of the few places Rafah children have to get away from the chaos of daily life.

More about the organization can be found here:
[ link ]

For the rest of this appeal space, I turn it over to others:

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Laila El-Haddad, a journalist and mother living in Gaza writes at her blog, Raising Yousef:
"In previous posts, I've mentioned the work of the tireless Fida Qishta of Rafah, which we are highlighting in our latest short documentary, "Where do the Children Play?". Many of you have asked me how you can help support Fida's work-either by way of donating to the playground project currently in the works, or the Centre itself. I've just learned from Fida that because they are no longer able to pay the rent, the Centre may shut down, and they are in dire straights. She's asked me to send the word out about their situation and see if anybody can assist. Here is some more information from her on the Centre itself."

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Fida, who runs the center, writes:
"We are life makers in Palestine , Gaza strip , Rafah city .

"As part of our work we started the Life Makers Center as a start, for children, which tries to provide an oasis of peace in a particularly devastated and impoverished area. We currently receive more than 250 children. We started with 40 children, three times a week , for three a hours after school. If we have more recourses we would accommodate more children and this is a long - term aim of ours.

"Our main objective is to give children a safe place to play, to educate and help children overcome trauma. We do our best to give them attention, affection and security. Our biggest objective is to create a bit of normality for these children- where they can come and play in a supervised, safe area.

We provide activities for children , for example handicraft, painting, reading , English lessons, games and tours. "

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Money will be forwarded via Gaza Community Mental Health, a respected NGO operating in Gaza.

Thanks.