Annual Report 1999 - 2000

Cross-Cultural Activities

"We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools." (Martin Luther King Jr.)

The continued deadlock in the 'Peace Process' reflects very clearly in some of our cross-cultural projects. The deteriorating conditions in the West Bank resulted in increasing reluctance among a considerable part of the Palestinian population to participate in joint activities with the Israeli side. This posed the challenge to Wi'am of how to proceed with these efforts, when listening to the concerns of people from our community, but also to follow our belief in the necessity of working together for an inevitable common future. In one of our projects, it took us two months of shuttle diplomacy to write a joint article on the situation of the Palestinian political prisoners, that at the end, doesn't say much, we feel. However, it was a good learning experience of how difficult it is to arrive to acceptable compromises in situations of great power imbalance.

Through some of the cross-cultural activities, Wi'am was not afraid of taking the risk of trying new techniques. Through guided discovery of the creative energies that lie hidden in individuals trapped in everyday struggle under the tense political situation, people broke out from conventional ways of thinking. They dared searching for alternative options of the reality here in the West Bank. 

Over the past year Wi'am has been working on a project with the Truman Institute called H.E.A.L.- Healing Early Action Link. Its purpose has been to bring individuals on both sides together beyond dialogue. Its hope is to have people walking in the shoes of the other, learning empathy and understanding. Its current focus is attending to the issue of the Palestinian Political Prisoners. We will issue a training manual for trauma healing.

Anti-Incitement through cross-cultural workshops has been a project we have been involved in over the past year. In cooperation with the Catholic Relief Services and the Truman Institute for Peace (Hebrew University), we have brought young adults together to focus on ethno-religious conflict resolution through anti-incitement and aggression prevention and preemption. Students who participate will produce a manual, and help in establishing a new NGO to work in this field.