5) Description of housing product/service offering: The Rebuilding Alliance, a 501c3 nonprofit organization, rebuilds homes and communities in regions of war and occupation. We advocate for government policies towards these regions based on human rights and international law. Through a mutual commitment to justice, we create alliances among our supporters, partners, and those who suffer injustice and violence, yet resist through rebuilding. Our projects are symbols of hope that help rebuild shattered communities and offer people around the world immediate ways to make peace.

In war zones and areas of occupation, people are often forced from their homes and land, under dangerous and traumatizing conditions. Their pain and loss feeds the conflict – and economic uncertainty staves off recovery. Many seek to return home as soon as tensions ease but there is no insurance to cover rebuilding – and no bank loans or mortgages to finance reconstruction. We focus on Palestine and Israel where over 3000 Palestinian homes were demolished in Gaza alone since yr. 2000.

Policy change at the multinational level is required to protect communities from re-demolition and push governments to negotiate a just peace. Our work stabilizes communities by helping them rebuild – and builds coalitions throughout the world to keep their neighborhoods safe by engaging in advocacy to make human rights and international law national policy.

Our organization engages in the following activities: (1) grassroots fundraising to finance and support Palestinian families who seek to rebuild their homes and neighborhoods; (2) policy reform to safeguard their neighborhoods; (3) and job training for people with disabilities to develop our capacity to make labor- intensive grassroots connections.

Our primary beneficiaries are Palestinian families whose home was demolished, the Palestinian economy benefiting from construction, Americans who seek a tangible way to make peace, and people w disabilities.

6) Description of innovation: When natural disasters strike, communities struggle to recover as soon as the disaster subsides. Man-made disasters, such as war and occupation, are no different: families and communities seek to rebuild their homes and lives as soon as the gunfire stops. However, the world usually waits for a peace agreement before helping them. At the Rebuilding Alliance we believe that by rebuilding in war zones, we help transform something destructive into something constructive. We draw people around the world together to advocate for their safety, and to create the financial basis for each community’s immediate rebuilding / recovery in accordance with international law.

Here's other rebuilding in the area: 1) UNRWA provides housing for Palestinian refugees who cannot return to their homes/land in Israel. 2) Until 2006, CHF International provided home improvement loans to Gaza families whose homes were not demolished. 3) The Franciscan Foundation for the Holy Land puts Christian families to work building new housing. 4) The Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions holds annual camps to rebuild a number of Palestinian homes, educating the international community. 5) ANERA works with local Palestinian NGO institutions, to rebuild schools & hospitals. 6) The Arc: A Formal Structure for a Palestinian State,developed in partnership with the RAND Corporation - urban planning for the day after peace comes.

TRA’s approach extends the above, combining a humanitarian response w informed advocacy, within the parameters of our 501c3, targeting policy change. Our unique and systemic approach (a) recognizes the value of community reconstruction, even while conflict is ongoing;(b) uses international law as the basis for a finance system for home reconstruction; (c) creates forums that build coalitions at the local level to create policy change; and (d) provides a job training program for the rehabilitation for victims of war as a way to build capacity in grassroots work.

7) Benefits to clients: So much of our work is about trauma recovery. In the ealiest stages of the planning process, the family is actively involved in telling their story to an expanding audience of people around the world who care. As funds become available, the family actively participates in the design and reconstruction of their home, and in the process, begins trauma recovery as they work with architects to design their home, deciding where to place the kitchen, the bedrooms, what it will look like.

We choose the client families by working with a local community, assisted by local NGOs, to respond to their reconstruction priorities. At present, when we can only rebuild one house at a time, the local community often decides which house.

Where possible, we try to rebuild homes in the original location, so that families can stay in their neighborhood on the land they own. There, they can hold on to neighborhood ties and friendships. They can work together to restore city services and a return to normal life.

With 70% unemployment in Gaza, employment is one of the most important benefits of all! At $30 per day – we put a team of 10 people to work for nearly 3 months in constructing each home. Rebuilding apartments and neighborhoods will lead to more employment, less malnutrition.

Clients also become the center of a growing advocacy network focused on legal rights and policy change to keep their neighborhood safe and bring the war to an end.

One other immediate benefit accrues from TRA’s “Job Training Program for People with Disabilities.” That program will prepare 20 people per year, per locale for web-based jobs with NGOs, local, and international companies. We’ll reach out to the newly and long-term disabled through UN agencies and NGOs, provide training (pilot program underway), count the number of trainees who receive jobs, and add-up their income as another measure of Social Return on Investment.

8) Key operational partnerships: In our work, it is critical to coordinate with local NGOs. E.g., our Gazan partner, the Gaza Community Mental Health Programme oversees building projects, provides trauma recovery services, navigates local bureaucracies, and provides guest speakers for our Contact Congress Teleconferences. We have equivalent relationships with Israeli and Palestinian NGOs in the West Bank and Jerusalem.

Key to donor development is a network of over 200 peace and justice organizations in the U.S., Canada, Australia, and Europe who are members of the U.S. Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation. They and places of worship (all faiths) host our speaking tours and fundraising events. We are expanding operational partnerships by building coalitions in congressional districts through our “Contact Congress Teleconferences”. These forums link constituents, Representatives, and guest speakers to discuss events on the ground and identify policy changes.

Our model is made possible by Salesforce.com’s donation of Customer Relationship Management software, and the training and hiring people with disabilities. Awarded the “Employer of the Year Award” by the San Francisco Mayor’s Office for the Employment of Persons with Disabilities, we are applying for funding from the CA Dept. of Rehabilitation to provide on-the-job training to help our students get jobs in nonprofit or private sectors. We will extend our program to people with disabilities in war zones, opening their access to web based jobs

9) Financial model: At present we provide 100% of the funding as a grant to the family via the supervising NGO. We are planning a loan-based program with small down payments to reconstruct apartment buildings. We seek to transition to a mortgage- based construction system based on a time-share home ownership model in which low-income and marginalized families will be aided by people around the world sharing a portion of the monthly mortgage payment, helping to guarantee the home against further destruction. Please note, title and land is ALWAYS the sole and exclusive property of the family. Families and extended family members may contribute funds to share home co-ownership, and families are expected to live in and care for the home during the limited time-share ownership period.

          • Costs as percentage of income: 20

          • Financing: Here’s how our proposed time-share home ownership program would work:

A. Global citizens purchase “Adopt a Home” pledges, promising to pay a portion of one mortgage on a monthly basis. In exchange, they receive a tax deduction or assume ownership of a corresponding percentage of the home. The Palestinian family who owns the land, holds a stake in the house proportional to their ability to repay the mortgage. B. TRA invites socially responsible investors e.g. the pension fund of the Presbyterian Church to invest, conditional upon insurance e.g. from Overseas Private Investment Corporation. C. TRA, representing all co-owners in the home, joins the Palestinian land-owner,to petition the Israeli Supr. Court to dismiss demolition orders/provide compensation

10) Effectiveness

          • Project outcomes: 120 speaking event and 200+ house parties helped build coalitions & membership. Where necessary, building projects are coupled with petitions to the Israeli Supreme Court and civil nonviolent disobedience in the form of repeatedly rebuilding until justice is served. In the proof of concept phase of our work, our fundraising efforts helped Israelis and Palestinians rebuild the East Jerusalem home of the Shawamreh family five times until the case was successfully settled when hundreds called their representatives to intervene. When we helped rebuild a kindergarten for the village of Al Aqabah in the West Bank, demolition orders were issued against all homes in the village, the mosque, medical clinic, and our kindergarten. We petitioned the Israeli Supreme Court and the case is pending.

          • Number of clients in past year: With the launch of our Rachel Corrie Rebuilding Campaign in Gaza, two families have benefited in the past year. During the previous two years, in our “proof of concept stage”, we built homes for six families and a kindergarten with 80 children registered registered in the rural community of 80 families. The entire village of Al Aqabah and the neighboring villages served by the kindergarten have benefited from the petition we helped file before the Israeli Supreme Court, hence the village and kindergarten remain standing.

          • Percentage of clients that are poor or marginalized: 100

          • Potential demand: In our current venue, Gaza, West Bank, and East Jerusalem, approximately 30,000 people have been made homeless in the last three years as the Israeli Defense forces cleared over 2500 Palestinian homes in Gaza, and hundreds of homes in the W. Bank to make room for settlements, the Separation Wall, and Israeli-only highways. The Jerusalem municipality ordered the demolition of hundreds of Palestinian homes in greater Jerusalem for lack of an unattainable building permit.

Around the world, the potential demand includes tens of thousands of homes, and thousands of schools in thousands of communities. Worldwide, the overall potential demand exceeds 5 million people. Examples include Iraq and other war zones and New Orleans and Haiti (where extreme prejudice limits recovery). In all cases, exact implementations require intimate understanding local community priorities.

11) Scaling up strategy

          • Stage of the initiative: Scaling Up stage.

          • Expansion plan: Our expansion plan is based upon a grassroots-driven outreach strategy that leads to direct investments in neighborhood reconstruction and policy change. Unlike a simple donor model, with direct investment, stakeholders become financially, socially, and politically vested in promoting a just peace.

Step 1: Increase our existing donor mailing list by continuing to hold speaking tours, house party fundraisers, and “Contact Congress Teleconferences” to build one house or school at a time;

Step 2: Expand construction projects to include apartment buildings that are funded through loans not grants. Continue to build donor mailing list and seek matching grants;

Step 3: Launch a time-share home ownership program to qualify for mortgage-based financing to eventually rebuild entire neighborhoods.

12) Origin of the initiative: In 2002, we learned that foundations were reluctant to fund rebuilding work in Israel and Palestine. We also learned that the best way to bring about change is to give people the opportunity to personally make a difference — and the result was holding house party fundraisers to build a home. In 2003, because 17 homes were destroyed in Wadi Humus (a district of Jerusalem) and we could only selectively rebuild one house, Donna Baranski-Walker realized that it was imperative to find a way to rebuild entire neighborhoods. Her plan was formalized for the National Social Venture Competition (semi-finalist) and presented at a U.N. Conference in Geneva, “Prerequisites of Palestinian Economic Recovery: the Role of the International Community.” That led to new partnerships, as we formed board of directors,registered as a 501c3 nonprofit in the US,& started Gaza duplex.

Contact Information:
Donna  Baranski-Walker
Executive Director
Rebuilding Alliance
(NGO - nonprofit)
457 Kingsley
United States
Tel: 650 325 4663
Fax: 650 325 4667
Email: dbw@RebuildingAlliance.org
Website: www.RebuildingAlliance.org