Build a Rural Women's Restaurant in Palestine

Dear Friend of the Rural Women's Center,

The Rural Women’s Association (RWA) in Al Aqaba dreamt of building a community center to generate jobs.  Imagine 300 women dancing in the wedding hall, with the RWA preparing the banquet!  In August, Australian Designer Hana Hakim, Palestinian architect Renad Shequerat, and the RWA worked with us to finalize plans for the Rural Women’s Center — and our designs touched your heart.  Together we won GlobalGiving’s Regional Bonus Day! 

Your support on the Bonus Day led to a big surprise.  That win resulted in an offer by  the Catholic Church to lease the Rural Women’s Association a vacant 15th century convent in nearby Tayasir, and RIWAQ Center for Architectural Conservation offered an 80% matching grant for restoration!   The Rural Women’s Association is interested and the designers and architect are delighted.     Next step: a site visit by the RWA and RIWAQ with the Office of the Latin Patriarchate to explore restoration, discuss terms, and decide how to protect the 3rd Century mosaics there.

Generous donor, what do you think?   The new proposal is to transform an abandoned 15th Century century convent into a thriving community center run by the remarkable Al Aqaba Rural Women's Association, the group that has been our partner for nearly 10 years now.   It is still very much a green building, but now instead of $200K in project costs,  we'll see a significant reduction in costs as well as matching grants and good alliances.   Does this work for you?

I look forward to your reply.   Feel free to give me a call at (650) 440-9667 if you have any questions or suggestions.

Sincerely,

Links:

• Here is the RIWAQ Center for Architectual Restoration