PfP Blog

Please sponsor our run in the Philadelphia Marathon!

Dear friends, family, and supporters of PfP – Please Sponsor Us! As many of you know, Ramzy Baroud and I are teaming up this year to run the Philadelphia Marathon in November to raise money and awareness of PfP. Toward that goal, on Sunday, 21 September, I (along with my wonderful neighbor, Nelson Dunham) ran the Philadelphia Half Marathon, mostly as a half way point in training, but also to put on the table for this email – to ask you to support us! You can see my (unimpressive) results by going to Searchable Results and typing in my name for the Half Marathon. Ramzy and I aren’t setting any records. Each of us has been told previously by our doctors that we could never run again. Ramzy had a serious back injury that necessitated spinal surgery. Likewise, my herniated discs and a …

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Three Playgrounds are on their way to Lebanon

Thanks to seed money from Dr Nabil Qaddumi, PfP was able to partner with MECA (Middle East Children’s Alliance) and ANERA (American Near East Refugee Aid) to initiate playground projects in Lebanon. On September 30th, three playgrounds will arrive for installation in Ein el Hilweh and Nahr el Bared refugee camps.

Missing Mahmoud Darwish (1941-2008)

We saw you tear off your limbs To pass through the narrow passage Now you know… Where birds fly after the last sky What color is the last beat of a poet’s heart? What word is it? Is it the humble majesty of the Holy Sepulcher? Or the lullaby of the Adan over Palestine? What was that last contraction? That sent ripples of love and grief across our earth The last call from the Voice of Palestine. You left us too soon, Mahmoud You are so loved You are so missed…

Susie and Linda to hold workships at the Sabeel Conference in Philadelphia

PfP Board members susan abulhawa and Linda Hanna will hold two workshops at this years Friends of Sabeel Confernece in Villanova, April 25-26. Sabeel (Arabic for ‘the way’) is a Palestinian liberation theology center in Jerusalem. Friends of Sabeel North America (FOSNA) sponsors a number of regional conferences in the United States and Canada to promote education and advocacy about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The Villanova conference features a number of international and nationally known speakers. For more information, please visit http://www.fosna.org/conferences_and_trips/PhiladelphiaConferenceFlyer.htm

Playground installations have begun

PfP is proud to announce that the installation of our two new playgrounds has officially begun. Susan Abulhawa arrived in the West Bank last week and has been scrambling to take care of some unforseen problems before installation can begin. For more information about her trip, go to http://pfp2008trip.blogspot.com/ Board member Sonia Rosen will be arriving in the West Bank at the end of February to continue these installations. Originally, one of these playgrounds was slated to be installed in Silwad, where PfP is partnering with Palestinian-American actor and comedian Maysoon Zayid, who runs arts programs for disabled, wounded, and at-risk refugee children through her non-profit organization Maysoon’s Kids (http://www.maysoon.com/news/maysoons-k ids.shtml). Unfortunately, upon Susan�s arrival we encountered a problem with clearance from …

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Playgrounds Update – March 2008

Dear PfP Supporters – As you all know, susan abulhawa and Sonia Rosen traveled to Palestine at their own expense to install the new playgrounds. Susie was there from Feb 14 until March 1st and Sonia from Feb 29 until March 14. [to read their blogs, go to http://pfp2008trip.blogspot.com and http://soniarosen.blogspot.com. Because we had obtained clearance from the Israelis prior to shipping the equipment, we were surprised to find that they would not release the equipment from the ports for the full time that we were there. However, subsequent to our departure, the playgrounds were released and sent to their respective sites. Our plan initially had been to install one of the playgrounds in …

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Nathan Dannison’s Ministry for a Playground in Bethlehem

I am a graduate student in the M.Div. program at Chicago Theological Seminary and I also work as the director of Outreach Ministries for a large, congregationalist church in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Ever since I became “politically aware” in high school the Isreali / Palestinian conflagration has deeply troubled me. In my adult life I have had an opportunity to spend my graduate career studying and following Jesus of Nazareth, a man from Palestine, who was a healer and proclaimed the justice tradition of the prophet Isaiah and the Tanakh. Therefore, when I received a ministry fellowship from the Fund for Theological Education, I understood that it was the first step on my …

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Local Film Screenings of Occupation 101

Don’t miss our screenings of the newly released Occupation 101, an award-winning documentary film (90 min) tha provides a basic overview of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. This film This film offers both a picture of life under occupation and an analysis of the current problem and its historical roots. If you wish to gain a better understanding of the long-enduring and seemingly intractable political conflict of our time, come see this film. You will leave with a better understanding not only of Palestine and Israel, but of the Middle East on the whole, and, more importantly, of how and why it affects our lives as Americans in the United States. A brief discussion will follow each screening and DVDs will be available for …

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Celebrating Heather and Armen’s wedding by building a playground for Palestine

Instead of gifts, Heather Henyon and Armen Vartanian are asking guests to contribute to PfP in honor of their wedding. http://heatherandarmen.wordpress.com/ The wedding will take place on Sunday 2 September 2007 at the First Congregational Church in Manchester, Vermont, and will be in the Armenian Orthodox tradition. Since Heather and Armen live in Lebanon, they are hoping to spend most of the weekend with their friends and family who they don’t get a chance to see often enough. Asked why they prefer to give to PfP rather than receive gifts on their wedding, Heather and Armen responded: “We passionately care about the people of Palestine, having lived and worked there. We traveled to the West Bank together in 2003, and we want to use this opportunity to give something back.” We are very grateful and touched by their generosity. From all of us at PfP …

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Tommy Lodge Joins the PfP Kid’s Club

Tommy Lodge became the newest member of PfP’s young donors when he donated $150 that he saved from his allowance. Tommy regularly makes such donations to various charities and he chose PfP this time because he has been to Palestine and believes that playgrounds there do make a difference in young lives. We are very grateful to you Tommy! And we hope more children will join you in a spirit of giving.

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Phoenix Elementary in Gaza

We are excited to announce the launch of an initiative we’ve been working on for a while. PfP established a school in Gaza for grades 1-5. We’re in our third week now of operation and it’s amazing. The school is a mixture of traditional and non-traditional learning. The first few days were focused on getting to know each other, consulting with children about what they want to get out of the school, how they want to decorate the space, and assessing their skills and abilities. It was decided to name the school: Phoenix Elementary. مدرسةالعنقاء As you can see, the kids were over the moon to be in a classroom after their lives were turned upside down. Grades 1-4 are focused on Arabic, English, math, and science, while grade 5 (along with anyone in grade 4 who wants) will solely focus on literature, where they will read novels

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This donation, our first to PfP, is to honor the children that see beyond conflict, and remind us to be ever present.