It wasn’t a holiday, we were a work brigade. In three weeks we have restored a small run-down building, located right at the main entrance of the camp, which is guarded, just like a concentration camp, by Lebanese army. Three weeks in which, working together with our friends of Nashet, we restored the building and provided it with the essential facilities, so that it can become a multipurpose community center, a place of interchange, memory and civil commitment, a meeting point for all the young Palestinian of the refugee camp: young people without a passport, outcasts, whose greatest dream is to return, one day, to their homeland.
Before returning home we held a small celebration. We celebrated, in an atmosphere of internationalist brotherhood, the conclusion of the first and more laborious tranche of work. There was pride on the faces of the volunteers. With the little money raised in Europe by Sumud, and thanks only to the voluntary and cooperative work of the joint brigade, we achieved a wonderful result.
Now we need to start the second phase: to furnish the center with the equipment and tools for it to finally start operate. First of all, we must furnish it with tables, chairs, some computers, a server, a good printer. We also need a couple of cameras, to be able to start a systematic video investigation on the life in the refugee camp. We wish that our social center also becomes a small but efficient media center, giving to the Palestinian youth of the camp a way to communicate with an outside world that often disregards the drama of refugees because their voices can’t go out and be heard. One of the purposes of this youth center will be precisely to connect with the world, to show the truth about the plight of millions of Palestinian refugees and explain why they have the sacred right of return to Palestine.
To start this second phase, a new work brigade will go to Ein el-Hilweh next summer. We have to compose this second brigade, so we address the most sensitive and willing young people, motivated by a sincere feeling of solidarity with the Palestinian Resistance, to join the core that has already been formed. But this second mission would be vain if we’ll not be able, before its start, to collect the funds necessary to purchase the needed tools and equipment.
The sooner we’ll provide an estimate of the minimum amount necessary. We do not want the dirty money of the governments or “humanitarian” international agencies. We do not want to depend on donors who may overnight deprive us of money because of our otherness or ask us to become like an NGO.
Support Sumud to help the Palestinian people who resist!
The Tasks of Sumud Voluntary Work Brigade 2010
25th July – 10th August
* Renovating second hand furnitures and/or craft new ones (under the monitoring of local craftsmen)
* Setting up a computer network and a multimedia room
* Producing a documentary on the life in the camp of Ein el-Hilweh and the work of the brigade (under the guide and teaching of a local expert)
We Need Some More Euros
The restructuration of the building, that will be used as a political and cultural center, open to all the young people in the camp, costed (in addition to nearly three weeks of work by around twenty volunteers, who paid on their own all travel, room and board expenses) almost € 10,000, and also furnish and equip the renovated building is expensive.
Sumud isn’t an ONG, it isn’t subsidized by state governments or by European Union or UNO. The money that will be used for this project will be clean, they will not come from the same institutions that support or back the aggession to the Palestinian People.
We have already done a lot, but we can reach the needed amount of money to make the center an operative one only if many people partecipate.
If you are interested in our project of building renovation for remedial teaching, you can look at the brochure that illustrate it shortly.
You can donate by clicking here; you can use your Paypal account, your Credit Card (normal or prepaid) or an online credit transfer.
If you prefer to use more traditional paying ways, you can do a credit transfer to our bank account.
current account made out to:
Sumud: volontariato e resistenza
at: Banca Popolare Etica
IBAN: IT19U0501802800000000127032
BIC: CCRTIT2T84A
For any doubt, question or request for information, please contact us: sostieni@sumud.org
