Abir's Garden: a Safe Place to Grow

14 Donations from 12 Donors:

Tex

rbrowne

A.Cohen

Wempy Dyocta Koto

Lee

Project Personnel

Donna Baranski-Walker - Executive Director, The Rebuilding Alliance

Founder and Executive Director of the Rebuilding Alliance, Donna has raised funds and coordinated project development to help rebuild 9 homes for Palestinian families, a peace center, a kindergarten. If possible, the projects bring Israelis and Palestinians together to rebuild. She holds a B.S. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and an M.S. from the University of Hawaii.

Zohar Shapira - Coordinator, Combatants for Peace

Among the founding members of Combatants for Peace, Zohar Shapira heads the Israeli side of the movement. Zohar, now a teacher in a Waldorf school in Israel, served for 15 years in the elite unit "Sayert Matkal", as a combatant and commander. After the bloody spring of 2002, when hundreds of Israelis and Palestinians were killed in mutual violence he refused to serve in the occupied territories.

Bassam Aramin - Co-founder Combatants for Peace

Abir’s father, Bassam Aramin, is co-founder of Combatants for Peace. He now works as a clerk at the Palestinian National Archives. At the age of 17 he was sentenced to 7 years in Israeli prison for belonging to the then-outlawed Fatah movement and for weapons possession. Beaten by soldiers in prison, he decided that he would not become a prisoner of hatred. He and his wife had six children.