GlobalGiving.org: 1st Palestinian Birthing Centr-Jordan River Valley

The Final Steps to the Birthing Center

Rudolfo San Miguel — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 21:50:34 GMT

Hello Everyone

I have some exciting news about the birthing center. Because of your continued support and donations, this project is nearly fully funded!

In addition, the Rotary Club Matching Grant which is for the birthing center equipment (ultra-sound, heart-monitors, etc.), has now been sponsored by seven Rotary Clubs in the United States, Palestine, and Israel. That matching grant application, a sister grant to the birthing center training provided through your donations to GlobalGiving, now moves forward for review at Rotary International. In total, both grants will make this is a $58,000 project! We look forward to approval in a few months time.

If all goes well, the equipment will arrive in the spring and training at the birthing center will commence shortly thereafter. Would you like to travel there to join them? We are organizing a tour in April or May, 2012 to visit the Holyland and stay in Al Aqaba while this training gets underway. If you are interested in learning more about this tour, please let me know!

Thank you for your continuing support in helping fund this project. Through your generosity, Palestinian families of Area C in the West Bank will have a birthing center, in'shalah, equipped and staffed, to provide family-centered birthing assistance in addition to pre and post-natal care for mothers and children.

Sincerely,

Rudolfo San Miguel

Rebuilding Alliance

GlobalGiving Coordinator

Matching Grant starts in just a few hours!

Donna Baranski-Walker — Tue, 18 Oct 2011 15:21:50 GMT

Al Aqaba schoolchildren with their origami

Thank you so much for your past support of Rebuilding Alliance's workl We've used every dollar donated to remarkable results. I ask for your help once again.

In just a few hours time, GlobalGIving will match by 30% every dollar donated, up to $1000. They have $100,000 to give away in just 24hrs on Wednesday Oct. 19th, Eastern Time.

We need your help to rebuild Palestinian homes, schools, playgrounds, libraries. This Birthing Center project is just $2,215 from being fully funded!

Please donate as early in the day as you can, before the funds run out.

Questions, suggestions? Please call me at 650-325-4663.

P.S. Your donation, large or small, really matters. GlobalGiving is providing a grant to the project with the most donors, and also a grant to the project that raises the most donations. We can do it... last time Rebuilding Alliance came in second. This time, help us to win!

P.P.S. One of our earlier GG Match projects helped create housing for teachers in Al Aqaba village. Here are photos of the Japanese teacher who came this past Sunday to give the children an overview of Japan!

Yuhki Ohnogi, a visiting teacher from Japan

Sushi in Al Aqaba? Why not!

Links:

Our latest video, Rebuilding to Remain

Restatement of Budget and Funding Goals

Donna Baranski-Walker — Fri, 26 Aug 2011 19:40:16 GMT

Hello everyone,

I am pleased to tell you that we are really close to completing our fundraising for the Birthing Center project!

When we learned that it would not be possible to send a refurbished ambulance to Al Aqaba (Israel does not allow used vehicles in), we contacted Assist International to restate the budget. That led to considerable discussion regarding the Rotary International matching grant that is a sister grant to our Global Giving initiative. The good news is that your donation via Global Giving.org will pay for the training and diplomacy side of this project, and will cost a total of $14,820". As of this writing, we are $3,013 away from our goal! The Rotary International side will pay for the ultrasound, incubators and fetal monitoring part of the project.

We look forward to moving this all forward in a few months time, as soon as the Rotary International grant is approved.

Sincerely,

Donna Baranski-Walker

Founder and Executive Director

Rebuilding Alliance

Dear Donor,

I am forwarding a status update from Donna, our director, who is currently in Ramallah, Palestine. She just spent some 15 days in Al Aqaba!

Sincerely,

Rudolfo San Miguel

Social Media Coordinator

Rebuilding Alliance

Dear Project Donors,

I am pleased to tell you that we are really close to completing our fundraising for the Birthing Center project!

When we learned that it would not be possible to send a refurbished ambulance to Al Aqaba (Israel does not allow used vehicles in), we contacted Assist International to restate the budget. That led to considerable discussion regarding the Rotary International matching grant that is a sister grant to our Global Giving initiative. The good news is that your donation via Global Giving.org will pay for the training and diplomacy side of this project, and will cost a total of $14,820". As of this writing, we are __________ away from our goal! The Rotary International side will pay for the ultrasound, incubators and fetal monitoring part of the project.

We look forward to moving this all forward in a few months time, as soon as the Rotary International grant is approved.

Sincerely,

Donna Baranski-Walker

Founder and Executive Director

Rebuilding Alliance
Next steps"

[11:58:20 AM] Donna Baranski-Walker: :

[11:58:46 AM] Donna Baranski-Walker: 1) Post the new budget to the birthing center project as a new attachment

[11:59:14 AM] Donna Baranski-Walker: 2) Notify Alexis to tell her to change the total requested amount -- or can you do this yourself?

[12:00:44 PM] Donna Baranski-Walker: 3) Post the status report.... please add "The good news is that your donation via Global Giving.org will pay for the training and diplomacy side of this project, and will cost a total of $14,820". As of this writing we are __________ away from our goal!

Attachments:

Revised budget (XLS)

Rebuilding Alliance in Washington DC

Rudolfo San Miguel — Thu, 12 May 2011 18:55:57 GMT

Greetings from Rebuilding Alliance!

We would like to thank you as a donor to the Birthing Center project for your kindness and generosity in contributing to the funding of this initiative. I have several pertinent announcements!

First, a Rebuilding Alliance team will be walking the halls of Congress on behalf of your commitment to the birthing center in Al Aqaba, a Palestinian village struggling to assert its right to exist. We will ask Senators and Congressmen to intervene to urge the Government of Israel to open and repave the road so that the birthing center will be easily assessable to everyone living around the village.

Second, if you happen to be in the DC area, please join us May 19^th at Busboy & Poets—Shirlington. Laila El-Haddad, “Gaza Mom” blogger, journalist, and author; and Donna Baranski-Walker, founder and executive director of Rebuilding Alliance, will speak at a fundraiser to support the Rebuilding Alliance and our next projects.

GlobalGiving has opened up a competition to help our projects get reliable monthly funding. I invite you to setup your reoccurring donation for 1^st Palestinian Birthing Centre- Jordan River Valley today. GlobalGiving’s Recurring Donation Campaign lasts until May 20^th. By signing up for a recurring donation now, you can help this project qualify for an additional $1,500! Please select the “Recurring option” under the big orange “donate” button.

Thank you again for your financial support in funding our projects. We hope that through your thoughtful contributions we can achieve full funding for all our projects on GlobalGiving. If you have any questions, please comment on this update or send me an e-mail at Rudolfo@rebuildingalliance.org

Rudolfo San Miguel

GlobalGiving Coordinator

Links:

RSVP Busboys & Poets Fun-raiser Event Thursday, May 19, 2011

Frustrating set-back, holding on to Hope

Rudolfo San Miguel — Mon, 11 Apr 2011 23:41:30 GMT

Their schoolbus: vintage minivan,4 trips each way

Hello everyone!

My name is Rudolfo San Miguel. I have been volunteering with Rebuilding Alliance for close to a year now and I am proud of the work we have done. I am delighted to now be invited to join the staff part-time to provide monthly status reports for each of our projects on GlobalGiving. My background is in Technical Writing and Professional Writing and when I decided on a career path, I felt the need to focus my work in support of important nonprofits like the Rebuilding Alliance.

We are still fund raising for the "First Birthing Center in the Jordan River Valley" project with quite a bit of light now showing at the end of the tunnel. We hope to be able to schedule the equipment purchase and training this coming autumn. I will soon write to convey new information about the evolving plans.

However, I am writing now with news that is not good.

On Thursday morning, April 7th, kindergartners looked on from their school bus as Israeli soldiers barricaded access to, and then destroyed, several sections of the Peace Road, the main road in and out of Al Aqaba village. Al Aqaba is a tranquil and conflict-free place where villagers have worked together to prevent total demolition repeatedly over the past 20 years. The walls of earth and bulldozed road means the school bus must now take long detours to get 200 children to their kindergarten and school.

In response, the Rebuilding Alliance is asking everyone to sign our petition called, "Open the Road to Al Aqaba, Pave the Road to Peace." Our goal is to ask our elected official to contact the Israeli Embassy and urge the State of Israel to fix what their army destroyed. Please sign the petition -- and if you can, please call the senior staffer for foreign policy at your legislator's office. Let's get that road fixed by the end of summer.

Sign here: http://www.change.org/petitions/open-the-road-to-al-aqaba-brpave-the-road-to-peace

Please call me at 1 650 325-4663 or email me at Rudolfo@RebuildingAlliance.org as questions arise. You can learn more about the situation by reading our web page, www.RebuildingAlliance.org.

I hope despite this set-back, you will continue to hold on to the dream of establishing the first Palestinian birthing center in the Jordan Valley, Area C of the West Bank. I know the villagers deeply appreciate your commitment to them in this time of challenge and need.

Sincerely,

Rudolfo San Miguel

P.S.: Remember, this project provides equipment and training to expand the capability of the existing medical clinic in Al Aqaba. This is not about construction, but instead about enhanced capability. The birthing center we envision will be a part of the existing small medical clinic in Al Aqaba and we hope it will serve families throughout Area C.

Peace Road is the main road to the village

Children waiting in line to go home

Afterwards,Village Council asked Army why?

Israeli Army bulldozer ripping Peace Road apart

They even knocked down the light poles

Army closed whole area, stopped schoolbus

Let's get the road opened and paved soon

Links:

Good News from new Ramallah Rotary Club!

Penina Eilberg-Schwartz — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 23:37:36 GMT

Dear friends,

This morning, we heard some wonderful news from Ramallah. Since 1996, a group of residents have been waiting for the approval of their application to launch a Rotary Club. Finally, the Ramallah Rotary Club was chartered in the spring, and was presented to the 30,000 rotarians present at the International Rotary Conference in Montreal.

What does this have to do with the Birthing Center that you are helping us to build? Everything.

The Ramallah Rotary Club has approved our plans for the first Palestinian Birthing Center in Area C, to be built in Al Aqaba, and will join us in raising funds.

This is a huge roadblock that we have crossed. The Rotary partnership is one essential piece of completing this project. Due to its ambitious scope, we could not raise the funds for the center from individuals or rotary clubs alone. Both are necessary, and the Rotary network brings a great deal of opportunity forward.

Executive Director of the Rebuilding Alliance, Donna Baranski-Walker comments:

"Because Rotary is involved, we are bringing the proposal forward at clubs throughout California, and to add the Ramallah club to the list is a great joy. There is considerable bravery on all sides, because the the Rotary Club of Nazareth is welcomed by Al Aqaba and all involved as a strong supporter in the project. It's taken a year and a half to bring this all together, and we are delighted to give many communities the opportunity to help."

Though we still need your help, and have a lot of work ahead of us, this development is heartening, especially now. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced the resumption of peace talks between Israelis and Palestinians. We have seen these peace talks before, and we must remember now that talking is not enough. We have to build together to really make peace. And to pursue a building project so essential for women's health in Area C, where demolitions of Palestinian homes continue, is all the more important. Much of Area C is the Jordan River Valley, and the Birthing Center in Al Aqaba is nestled there. It not only provides a vehicle of health, but a way for Palestinians to

Join us in celebrating the new Rotary Club of Ramallah, our new partnership, and a path to move forward with the Birthing Center!

Links:

News of the new Rotary Club

A Great Visit to Al Aqaba!

Donna Baranski-Walker — Sat, 27 Feb 2010 02:01:18 GMT

Mayor Haj Sami, a great driver!

Good news from Al Aqaba! In January, I attended an engineering conference in Doha Qatar concerning Gaza reconstruction. That made it possible for me to visit our projects in Palestine and Israel; my first stop was the West Bank village of Al Aqaba.

I had last seen Haj Sami Sadeq, the mayor of Al Aqaba, in 2008 when he joined our speaking tour that spanned the United States. The mayor is paraplegic, so I did all of the driving. He returned the favor this time by picking me up in Ramallah in his specially modified car that allows him to accelerate, brake and steer using only his hands (see photos).

It was wonderful to see him again and to spend two days in Al Aqaba, strolling the brand-new streets of the village, meeting villagers and Haj Sami’s extended family and discussing challenges as well as future building projects. We visited our kindergarten, now 3 stories high, with 130 students in attendance, the Ibn Rush’d Library upstairs and 1.5 floors housing the Rural Women’s Cooperative’s sewing machines, giving moms jobs. We visited the 3 new apartments being constructed for visiting English teachers; and new classrooms to double the size of Al Aqaba’s elementary school. We talked about the demolition orders (still in force) and the status of the village’s master plan and the hope that its approval will assure the village its right to issue building permits on the land to which it holds clear title.

It was a great pleasure to visit the little 2-room clinic in Al Aqaba that with your help, will expand into a Birthing Center with ultrasound, heart monitors, and an incubator. When our Birthing Center project reaches its fundraising goal, we’ll install refurbished medical equipment and provide training along with an ambulance with portable incubator. This ambulance will not only be the first mobile neonatal care unit in Area C of the West Bank, it may be the first ambulance in all of Area C.

How will this delivery be possible? The Rotary Club of Nazareth, Israel, in partnership with my Rotary Club of Woodside / Portola Valley California will draw upon their Rotary connections to assure the delivery of the medical equipment and ambulance. I look forward to telling you more about this in future updates!

Thank you again for your wonderful support!

Sincerely, Donna

Interviews under Al Aqaba's tree, famous, mayor's office

My presentation at the Rotary Club of Nazareth

Links:

Big Thanks for Your Support in the Alive and Learning Challenge!

Tahsin Siddique — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 23:03:17 GMT

Hello everyone!

Due to your wonderful generosity, our 1st Palestinian Birthing Center in the Jordan River Valley received the support of the most number of donors in GlobalGiving UK’s Alive and Learning challenge! GlobalGiving will give us a grant of 250 pounds! We could not have done this without your help! We are so grateful to our wonderful supporters for coming through for us to launch this important project.

Fund raising will continue for the Al-Aqaba Birthing Center project through the months to come, so please do spread the word! We are very excited to watch this very important project take shape. We look forward to the day that pregnant mothers can give birth to their babies in a safe, accessible environment equipped for emergencies. We are in the process of applying for more grants and hope to fulfill this dream very soon!

In further news, the new American Consul General is scheduled to visit Al-Aqaba this week! Haj Sami Sadik, the Mayor of Al-Aqaba has told us that he speaks Arabic! More news to come soon!

We are grateful to all of you for helping us succeed in the challenge.

Sincerely,

Tahsin

Al Aqaba Birthing Center Project Update

Lisa Griswold — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 21:42:00 GMT

The village of Al Aqaba is proud to announce that many children will be traveling to Israel to visit and exchange with an elementary school in Tel Aviv. Al Aqaba started their Summer Peace Camp for children as well. In addition to creating exciting arts and crafts, the children will be making more than 1000 origami Pinwheels for Peace. Each pinwheel will be displayed around the village and presented worldwide on World Peace Day, September 21st 2009. To view Al Aqaba on the official Pinwheels map, go here: http://www.pinwheelsforpeace.org/

This birthing center project is in the process of discovering supplementary funding resources. In addition to contributions from Global Giving donations and the Assist International grant, The Rebuilding Alliance is applying for a Competitive Matching Grant from Rotary International. The Rebuilding Alliance has secured a sponsor from the United States, and is working now to find an international sponsor for the project.

For more information the birthing center project, visit our pbwiki site: http://rebuildingalliance.pbworks.com/Campaign-for-1st-Birthing-Center-in-Al-Aqaba

We’re so grateful for your support of our work in Al Aqaba! Please spread our message to your family and friends and remind them that every small donation carries us towards winning a matching grant in the Global Giving competition. Stay tuned for more updates about how you can become involved!

Assist International joins Birthing Center Project

Robert J. Paggett — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 06:46:51 GMT

July 3, 2009

To Whom It May Concern:

Assist International has been asked by Donna Baranski-Walker and her Rotary District 5170 Rotary Club, to be a service vendor for a neo natal and pediatric clinic at the Al Aqaba Village, West Bank Palestine (Area C). In addition, this proposal is being submitted to GlobalGiving.com, in the hope that donors eveywhere will help us meet our goals.

Al Aqaba Village is a small village in the upper North West part of the West Bank of Palestine. The Rebuilding Alliance has built a new kindergarten and children’s park in the village and they now are committed to provide a children’s clinic in the village. Rebuilding Alliance has asked for an ambulance, delivery table, a desk, two chairs, a file cabinet, two fetal monitors, one ecg machine, two patient full perimeter monitors with neonatal, pediatric and adult capability, one infant warmer, one stethoscope, one ambulance gurney, two bassinets and an ultrasound machine.

This is equipment needed for a baby and children’s clinic in the village. At present, if there is a critical care situation, a patient must be moved to Jericho for treatment on bad, often restricted, roads, a least a two hour trip. In case of a critical care baby with complications after child birth or a mother who has a tearing during child birth which puts her into a critical condition that could mean her life, the equipment we provide for the clinic is capable of saving a mother and child’s life. It will change a room of death into a room of life.

As you might know, it will be a challenge to do a project in the West Bank, but in the spirit of Rotary, Rotary commits to meet the needs of the poorest and neediest, no matter a person’s race, creed, politics, or religion. Assist International is also willing to meet the challenges that comes with doing a major project in the West Bank of Palestine and is willing to serve as a service vendor for this Rotary Project.

At the request of various Rotary Districts and clubs, Asst International has partnered with Rotary Clubs and the Rotary Foundation in projects in Romania, Chile, Mongolia, China, Africa and other countries around the world. Assist International has done over 80 medical projects in over 45 countries around the world and all systems are still operational and providing life saving care.

Assist International will warrantee the equipment for one year. One of the keys to the success of the project is the training that we provide on how to use the equipment and how to maintain it. Assist International will not only provide the best of medical equipment but training, maintenance and repair manuals as well. Assist International will also abide by the laws of the West Bank Palestine Authority and will agree to participate in a financial review of the project if asked.

If there are questions, you can contact Bob Pagett of Assist International. The office phone is: 831-438-4582.

Sincerely yours, Robert J. Pagett President Assist International Charter Member – Scotts Valley Rotary Club Rotary District 5170

Attachments:

Letter on Assist International Letterhead (DOC)