Madison Rafah Journal

Commemorating the life of Rachel Corrie

Sunday, March 21
4:30-5:30 pm Silent Auction viewing and bidding
5:30-6:30 pm Vegetarian Dinner by Lulu's restaurant
6:30-9:00 pm Program
Fellowship Hall, First United Methodist Church
203 Wisconsin Avenue, Madison [Map]

A benefit dinner and program sponsored by the Madison-Rafah Sister City Project and Madison Playgrounds for Palestine.

Tickets for the dinner and program are $15 for adults and $10 for children 12 and under. All proceeds will help provide Palestinian children with a new playground in Beit Sahour, West Bank through Playgrounds for Palestine, and a water purification system for a school in Rafah, Gaza through the Maia Project of the Middle East Children's Alliance (MECA).

Besides information on these two humanitarian projects, the program will mark the seventh anniversary of Rachel Corrie's death on March 16 with (Read on …)

Photo: Laura Durkay

Edgewood College
Predolin Humanities Center [Map], Room 307
Madison
7:00 pm

Josh Brollier, co-coordinator of Voices for Creative Non-Violence, will give a talk with slides about this historic January 2010 march where 1300 delegates from 43 countries tried to break the siege of Gaza from Egypt.

Sponsored by Pax Christi, Madison-Rafah Sister City Project, and Wisconsin Network for Peace and Justice. For more information email rafahsistercity (at) yahoo.com or call 238-1227.

Overture Center/International Festival
Saturday, March 6, 11 am – 6 pm

The Madison-Rafah Sister City Project crafts committee is looking for volunteers to sell Palestinian crafts, olive oil soap, and olive oil at the Festival. These sales provide crucial support to the producers, especially to women in Rafah and elsewhere in Gaza. We would also like to expand the project if possible.

If you are interested in helping, especially if you would like to be an active member of the committee, please contact Tsela Barr at tsela[at]tselabarrdesign.com. If you know someone else who might be interested, please send their contact info to Tsela.

Olive oil sales have been picking up and if anyone is interested in working specifically on that (there is a lot of direct marketing to individuals, stores and groups) please contact Amal at amaljo[at]gmail.com

Tuesday, Feb. 23, 2010
7 pm, Room B1B
Lowell Center, UW Madison [Map]

Aziz Abu-Sarah is a former Fatah Youth Member and now a veteran Palestinian peacebuilder. Kobi Skolnick is an ex-Kahana settler turned Israeli peacemaker. Together they talk about their path-breaking peace work across enemy lines.

National tour sponsored by The Center for World Religions, Diplomacy and Conflict Resolution (CRDC) at George Mason University. Local sponsor Kavanah UW student group.

Biographies
Aziz Abu-Sara
Kobi Skolnick

Dear Members and Friends of MRSCP,

Late last year, we agreed to take on the task of raising funds to pay for and install three water filtration/desalination systems that the Middle East Children's Alliance (MECA) wants to put in a school and two day care centers in Rafah.

This is part of the very ambitious MAIA PROJECT by MECA to install 20 such systems in schools, kindergartens and daycare centers in Gaza. So far, funds have been raised for about five systems.

We are pleased to report that we are only $800 away from our goal of paying for one of the two smaller systems.

And, while we are planning a major fundraiser for Sunday, March 21 (more information on that shortly), we are hoping that you will consider a donation to help put us over the top for this first daycare system so that we can turn our attention to the much larger school system.

(Read on …)

A Film Screening & Presentation with Discussion to Follow
Tuesday, February 16, 7:00pm
Rainbow Bookstore Coop
426 W. Gilman St.
Madison

Emmy-nominated screenwriter and documentarian Matt Sienkiewicz will be presenting Live From Bethlehem in a special screening at Rainbow on February 16th.

The Bethlehem-based Ma'an News Agency (MNA) emerged out of the ashes of the second Intifada to become a significant independent news network in the Occupied West Bank and an increasingly prominent and influential journalistic force in the wider Middle East.
Live from Bethlehem tells MNA's remarkable story. It chronicles the agency's struggles and successes through the eyes of the station's reporters, producers, and photographers, in the process quietly revealing the humanity of ordinary Palestinians as they go about their daily business.

(Read on …)