5) Description of initiative: Some people regret the past. The great drama is if our present is still more beautiful than our future. As Palestinian, the image stereotyped in the media is to show Palestinians as only capable of throwing stones or burning tires or exploding themselves, all of which dehumanize them. Being born and grown up in a refugee camp under Israeli occupation, I have witnessed all the evolution in the life of a refugee after 1967. I didn’t want our children to be just other numbers on lists of martyrs or handicapped for the rest of their lives, or continue to reproduce the same images shown in the media or end up in prison or explode themselves. I offer them a new nonviolent way of self expression, peaceful and beautiful way to resist and respond to violence through Theatre, arts and education. This also allows them to show another image of their beauty and humanity and break up the stereotypes. Aida camp has no green spaces or playgrounds, or a place where children can express themselves in a constructive and positive way. With the help of some friends, I created Alrowwad theatre center to offer an alternative to the street and its violence. In addition, through theatre and dance performances outside the country, we give them the occasion to meet with the other regardless of his race or religion, and both will look at each other as human beings living in the same world and as equal partners to build a better future for themselves and the generations to come. We are all human beings with equal rights and responsibilities to make this world worth living in, in real and respecting peace.

6) Description of innovation: We are using a peaceful and a beautiful mean to provide possibilities for positive peaceful (non-violent), active and constructive ways of self-expression and evacuation of stress and anger linked to the violence due to the frequent incursions by the Israeli occupation army in Aida camp-Bethlehem and the neighboring areas. Our main interest in this stage is to build up peace inside our children as a way to promote building a larger peace in the larger community and the world. Gandhi said: “If we want to make a war against war, we have to start with children”. This is one of my leading keys to work with children as a mean to build a future generation familiar with stereotypes and working to go beyond them to understand and meet the other whether the other is Muslim, Christian, Jew, Buddhist or whatever. This work also involves parents and teachers in schools so that our work is complementary to each other.

7) Delivery model: We are a non-governmental independent organization, depending mainly on volunteers and in the stage of institutionalization, we reach out to people, schools, and other organizations through Advocacy visits, performances in theatre, dance, puppets, video and photography training, as well as other artistic competition. Women and mothers as motors of the society are our main partners in this work. Social workers in schools have their role in this work.

8) Key operational partnerships: We are partnering with the families, teachers and schools, Council of parents in the schools, Popular Service Committee in Aida camp, Union of Palestinian Youth Centers, and Ministry of Culture and Information. Other local partners include Edward Said Music center, National Music center in Nablus, AlKamandjati association, Badil center. We have as well international partners including the Friends of Alrowwad in France, Switzerland and USA. We have recieved funding for specific short term projects from UNRWA, UNDP, Representative Office of the Netherlands, Hoping Foundation-UK, French Consulate in Jerusalem, Eurpoeam Commission in Jerusalem, Jerusalem Fund-USA among others.

9) Financial model: When we started in 1998, the main slogan was “With or without money, we are going to do it”. With the creation of the Friends of Alrowwad, we have the main donors. We also worked and presently working on projects financed by UNRWA, UNDP, French Consulate. The results of some training ended by products that are commercialized and make a money income including post cards from the photography training workshops, video films from the video filming and editing workshops, embroidery products from the women unit in Alrowwad center, booklets produced by children in Alrowwad (Guide to Aida Camp). In addition, performances and theatre tours (local and international) generate also funds. Our Website also contributes to make same income through free will donations.

          • Costs as percentage of income: 80%

          • Financing: Alrowwad organization is partly financed through donations by the friends of Alrowwad in France, Switzerland and USA as well as local and visiting donors. Supportive education program contributes about 3% and membership fees in the center contributes about 0.1%. Income from activities’ products and publications generate about 5% of income as well (for the moment since this started this year). We are working on generating sustainable means for our programs. The main key is as well the volunteerism of most of our trainers.

10) Effectiveness

          • Project outcomes: The main outcomes on local level is to have a balanced generation who is open-minded, with positive attitudes and means to express himself through peaceful, beautiful and productive means. This generation would be more stable and less stressed, depressed and angry because of evacuation of all this frustration building up due to continuous oppression and frequent incursions by the Israeli army. Alrowwad has already performed in Sweden, Denmark, Egypt, France, Belgium and USA. On international level, this will permit Palestinian children to show another image of themselves and their people, culture and heritage, their beauty and their humanity. These tours permit the children to meet with the "others", give opportunities to meeting and dialogue and better understand them

          • Number of clients in past year: Aida camp accommodates 4700 people, 66% of whom are under 18 years old, and more than52% are females. In 2005, Alrowwad program benefited directly more than 1400 children, and 400 adults out of the 4700 inhabitants of the camp. Our performances, video projections or my conferences have been seen by more than 5000 in Palestine and more than 20,000 internationally were introduced to Alrowwad program and it’s beautiful resistance idea. We do not have statistics about people visiting our website. Our peaceful resistance program have gained more than 300 new friends of Alrowwad during our last year theatre tour in USA. About 100 persons/year contacted me after website visit, requested information about our programs or to volunteer. 15 people volunteered in our center

11) Scaling up strategy

          • Stage of the initiative: Scaling Up stage.

          • Expansion plan: Until now, Alrowwad has worked with 5 communities of refugees in the West bank. In 2007-2009, Alrowwad plans to work in the rest of the 19 refugee camps in the West Bank- Palestine to introduce the idea of non-violent beautiful resistance through theatre, dance, arts and Education. Alrowwad continues to seek partners locally and internationally

12) Origin of the initiative: I originated the initiative in 98 in Aida camp/Bethlehem,which has been heavily touched by the Israeli army frequent incursions. The camp has no green spaces or playgrounds for children to play. The main victims are children and women who suffer from closures, evacuation of schools and curfews due to military incursions. The main activities for children are in the street, where children play, fight with each other, or be in continuous confrontation with Israeli soldiers during incursions. A lot of children have heavily suffered physically and psychologically (stress, violence with each other, wetting their beds) as well as decrease in school progress. It was important to work on dealing with these problems and challenges in order to help them find the peace within before going forward and work on the local/regional and global levels. I have a team helping.

Contact Information:
Abdelfattah  Abusrour
Ashoka Fellow
Director
Alrowwad Cultural and Theatre Training Center
(NGO)
P.O.Box 989 Bethlehem - West bank - Palestine
Palestine
Tel: + 972 2 275 0030 or mobile + 972 522 401 325
Fax: + 972 2 275 0030
Email: aabusrour@gmail.com
Website: http://www.alrowwad.org