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WE APPOINT A FUNDRAISER
STEINER SCHOOLS JOIN US
JULIA SAWALHA JOINS CHILDREN OF PEACE AS A FRIEND
MESSAGE FROM TONY BLAIR
March 2008
EMMA THOMPSON, GREG WISE, IMELDA STAUNTON AND JIM CARTER BECOME FRIENDS OF THE CHARITY
March 2008
BRITISH ARTIST HOLDS CHARITY NIGHT March 2008
ABIR ARAMIN 2008 SCHOLARSHIP
GAZA EMERGENCY APPEAL SENDS AID December 2007
HEREFORD FOOTBALL CLUB SUPPORT December 2007
SOCCER SCHOOLS UPDATE
STARS OF STAGE AND SCREEN ATTEND THE FIRST LONDON EVENT November 2007
OUR GAZA FRIENDS CALL ON CHILDREN OF PEACE TO HELP October 2007
CHILDREN OF PEACE SUPPORTS ONEVOICE DAY OF PEACE
October 2007
MIDDLE EAST DELEGATION REPORTS TO DISTINGUISHED GUESTS April 2007
CHILDREN OF PEACE SOCCER TEAM WIN WORLD CUP! March 2007
CHILDREN OF PEACE DELELGATION MEETS 13 ISRAELI AND PALESTINIAN GROUPS March 2007
CHILDREN OF PEACE REMEMBERS ABIR ARAMIN January 2007
BIG LOTTERY FUND AWARDS FIRST INTERNATIONAL GRANT TO CHILDREN OF PEACE December 2006
CHILDREN OF PEACE ENJOYS A SUCCESSFUL LAUNCH Nov. 2006
PATRON:
MADONNA
DAME JUDI DENCH
ROYAL PATRON:
HH THE BEGUM
AGA KHAN
Copyright Children of Peace;
design and build by
THE AMERICAN FUND FOR CHARITIES
Supporting Good Causes Worldwide
THE ARCHIVES
SUPPORT OUR TEAM! THE 2011 10K LONDON
IS FUNDRAISING FOR CHILDREN OF PEACE
Every year, a team of runners help to raise funds for Children of Peace by entering
the Annual 10K London Run. This year, the 2011 British 10k London Run starts at 9.35am
on Sunday, 10th July in central London.
Our 2011 team consists of: Jeremy Austin, Clare Bolt (Trustee), Emma Cohen, Rebecca
Davison, Antonia Leslie (Trustee), Dominic Martin (Trustee), Laura Matthews, Tori
Monkman, Claire Packham (Trustee) and Catherine Usher.
Sponsor our Team
Please show your support for Children of Peace's cause by visiting www.justgiving.com/ontheroadtopeace
and sponsoring our team. Any amount you can spare, large or small, will make a difference
and be greatly appreciated by those youngsters in need - and don't forget to claim
Gift Aid if you are a UK taxpayer. All the money raised will go to groups in Israel,
Gaza and the West Bank working to bring kids from all sides together.
Last year's funds from the race helped to fund leaflets in Arabic for the Israeli
National Council for the Child and medical supplies for Physicians for Human Rights
- a group of Israeli doctors who run vital clinics in the West Bank for economically
deprived Palestinian families.
Please leave a message of support below for the team or any individual runner you
are sponsoring.
You can find full details on the Run, it's route and further information by logging
on to the British 10k London Run (www.thebritish10klondon.co.uk)
Thank you for your support!
THE CHILDREN OF PEACE INTERVIEW I
Professor Sarah Brown talks to Hebron peace activist and Youth Ambassador to Children
of Peace - Mahmoud Jabari
Mahmoud Jabari is a photojournalist based in Hebron, and a Youth Ambassador for Children
of Peace. His aspirations for Palestinian self-determination go hand in hand with
his commitment to peace. Here he talks to Trustee Sarah Brown about his childhood
in Hebron, his teenage involvement with peace activism, and his hopes for the future.
Sarah Brown: Mahmoud - we hear quite a bit about Israel and Palestine in the UK,
but don't perhaps know so much about day to day life in the occupied territories.
Can you tell us something about the challenges you face?
Mahmoud Jabari: When you are someone who search for peace and want to live in peace
with the other side, the challenges under occupation are multiplied. You do not accept
the occupation not only because you want to live with dignity, but because you want
the other side to be a partner whom your people can accept to live side by side in
the future.
I live in a special city with special situation. It is Hebron that has Israeli settlers
living in the middle of the Palestinian community, Hebron that has settlements around
it. When you look to the view of these settlements while coming to Hebron, you doubt
the fact that a Palestinian State is something possible. This opens not only discussion
on the political level, but also on the personal level as you begin asking yourself
a lot of questions that sometimes contradict themselves, and leave you with no answer
about the future of your people.
When I pass through checkpoints, I don't have to be humiliated in order to say that
checkpoints are something wrong, but the fact that there is checkpoints that I pass
through between Palestinian cities is making me feel not respected, and makes me
feel on behalf of my people that we are looked to as the side which accepts everything
even humiliation.
As I told you, I really dream that I will to the day in which I see my nation lives
peacefully side by side with the Israeli nation, but let's recognize that this dream
is the responsibility of both sides together, and one side itself, and that there
is facts that we need to change, one of them is the checkpoints, and the settlements.
Sarah Brown: Can you tell us something about your experience of school or college
in the West Bank?
Mahmoud Jabari: The fact that I have lived since my childhood and for ten years on
the borders with the Israeli settlements in Hebron beside Israeli settlers, and in
an area that was under the Israeli army control have made my parents very careful
of me and my sisters in our school life. For the first four years of my school, my
parents registered me in private school in which a bus was taking me and bringing
me back to home, but after the second Palestinian uprising has started, we have moved
to a more quiet area in the city in which we were away from fire and curfews. And
I was sent to public schools for the rest of my school life until I graduated from
high school in 2009.
On the other hand, I have to say that my school was the place from which I started
my activism, I published the first articles by me in a wall magazine I was publishing
in my school at age 13 - my magazine was called "Peace Seeds" and I was putting photos
and articles about the sufferings of Israelis and Palestinians on an equal bases
as I want my peers to know that we were not the only side who was suffering from
the conflict. At my school, I was elected at my age 14 by the students of the city's
school to be the Mayor of the children and youth for three years. This is why I admire
my experience at school, and I believe that it was the turning point of my life track.
Sarah Brown: You have a strong commitment to peace and seem to want to reach out
to your Israeli neighbours. How did you arrive at that point? Did you always feel
that way?
Mahmoud Jabari: Thank you for saying the word neighbours, because this is the way
I have always perceived them.
When I was a child, I was always asking myself about the other side. My life in Hebron
has motivated me to ask myself a lot of questions, I was always trying to find another
face than the one I see on TV, or that the one I watch on checkpoints. I was always
trying to cross the borders that were built by checkpoints, curfews and the conflict,
because since my childhood, I could never perceive someone but as a human like me,
I could not be but like this.
Later on, when I became more aware, I realized that this is our human nature which
we should all follow, and which teach us that we are all equal.
On the other side, getting to be more aware day after day about the conflicts has
led me to believe that the only way to end this conflict and to turn it into peace
between Palestinians and Israelis is to sit on one table, look to each other as humans,
respect each other, listen to each other and put the responsibility on our shoulders
together to end this conflict and to build this land.
Sarah Brown: Can you tell us about your experience of meeting young Israelis in the
US and Canada?
Mahmoud Jabari: The first time I met Israelis was at Seeds of Peace camp in Maine,
USA in the summer of 2007. It was the experience that broke a lot of borders inside
me about the other side, the experience that turned the way I was acting as an activist.
To meet Israeli youths for the first time is not easy, but is something interesting,
because you will test your ability to come over all the stereotypical images about
the other side and believe in who you are as a normal person and who he/she is as
an Israeli and as a normal person. That was followed by meeting Israelis at Peace
it Together camp in Canada in 2008, and followed by many meeting at many regional
and global opportunities.
What is special about such an opportunities is that despite all the hardness in the
dialogue and conversations that go on between both sides, you realize that it is
not only about your story or your suffering, but it is also about the other side,
whom you should consider and think about as much as you think about your side. And
I want to say here, that I am against all kind of violence against Israeli people,
Palestinian people and all human beings, because we were born to live peaceful on
this earth, and this land that we share is part of the earth.
Sarah Brown: Do you ever meet with any opposition to your peace activism?
The opposition exists everywhere; the most important thing is to be able to respect
each other’s tracks and opinions. Unfortunately this does not exist most of the times.
Yes, I face opposition from people and close people, but this is the core of our
mission as peacemakers and people who want to make change, the mission to making
those people think, and reconsider things. The mission comes from holding our values
in our hearts, respect everyone, and spread the human values all over the world.
I know that I might pay my life at some levels for tacking such a track of commitment
to peace and only peace, but I will continue to spread the values of peace. Each
day I convince one person from my side in the value of listening and understanding
the other side, I live a victory.
Sarah Brown: Tell us about your hopes for the future.
Mahmoud Jabari: My dream is to see this region peaceful, to see its entire people
living side by side peacefully and to see my children playing safe with children
from different religions and nations.
I want to get an opportunity to seek an academic experience in politics that will
enrich the who I am and will give me more global opportunities.
My personal dream is to be an Ambassador of Peace or Goodwill Ambassador for the
United Nations. It will be an opportunity in which I will have more access to travelling
around the world and speaking to people from all cultures.
CHILDREN OF PEACE AGM
The Children of Peace AGM will take place on 25th June 2011 in Hereford, United Kingdom
from 2.00 - 3.30pm. If you wish to attend this meeting as
a Member, Supporter or
Friend of the charity, please contact our office
for details: info@childrenofpeace.org.uk
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