Healing Minds, Bodies and Mother Earth
We live in a sick system, and people and the planet need healing. Our partners are leading the way with healing justice.
Gaza Community Mental Health Program (GCMHP) | Página 2 de 2
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No Sense of Safety Left in Gaza
Memories of every previous trauma are impossible to forget because all of us in Gaza always live lacking a sense of safety. The Israeli drones have never left the sky over us between 2014 and 2021.
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This Must End: A Call for Action from Palestine
How long will the world just sit idly by while we here in Gaza suffer like this? The people of Gaza need more than just statements and resolutions, while Israel receives the arms which are killing and terrorizing us.
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Heed Palestine’s Call for Justice
Over the past days, we've been in direct contact with our partners on the ground in Palestine. They have conveyed devastation, trauma, steadfastness and hope in solidarity.
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Demanding the Human Right to Mental Health in Gaza
December 10th is International Human Rights Day. For the Gaza Community Mental Health Program (GCMHP), a long-standing Grassroots International partner, mental health is a crucial part of human rights.
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One Year after Assault, the Disaster in Gaza Continues
One year ago today, the 51-day campaign of bombing, tank fire and all-out destruction by the Israeli military on Gaza finally ended. The 51 days of darkness euphemistically dubbed “Operation Protective Edge” were the third and most deadly round in a series of violent assaults on Gaza.
It is truly difficult, perhaps impossible to imagine life in Gaza, then and now, for the 1.8 million people who live there. First of all, there is the trauma.
“This is not about people who were killed, it is about us who were waiting for death every minute,” said Dr. Mona El-Farra to Grassroots International supporter and author Alice Rothschild during her recent visit to Gaza. Dr. El-Farra is the director of the Red Crescent Memorial Hospital that was bombed during the attacks.
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Successful Steps toward Food Sovereignty
From all corners of the world, small farmers, indigenous peoples and human rights activists have been percolating solutions upward to advance their rights to land, water and food. With 2011 behind us, Grassroots International celebrates some of the victories and inroads that took place last year, all with funding from Grassroots International and our supporters. Below are just some of the highlights.
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Recovery in Gaza — Garden by Garden
Three years ago today, on December 27, 2008, the Israeli Defense Force launched Operation Cast Lead in Gaza. The offensive left a trail of death and destruction in its wake, including hundreds dead, thousands displaced, and nearly the entire 1.5 million-person population traumatized and hungry. In the years since the bombing stopped and tanks rolled through agricultural fields, recovery has been slow.
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Celebrating Palestinian Land Day
At the rate the Separation Wall is being built, soon Palestinian Land Day (March 30) will need only a few hours. The Wall and the Israeli mandated buffer zones jut into the Palestinian territories by as much as 300 feet, gobbling up fertile agricultural land and precious water reserves, and make cool profits for companies like Elbit Systems Ltd. contracted to build the massive structure.
Because we believe in the human rights to land, water and food as fundamental rights, and because Elbit reaps massive profits from land grabs like the building of the Separation Wall, Grassroots International is asking TIAA-CREF to fully divest from Elbit Systems, Ltd. -
Gaza: Stories of Strength amid Assault and Siege
Year before last, I was sitting in the living room of my childhood home sharing a cup of morning coffee with my mother and musing over the holidays. We laughed over kitschy Christmas gifts from well-meaning relatives before deciding to turn on the news for five minutes on the brink of another vacation day. Those five minutes would turn out to be one of those times like 9/11—when you never forget exactly where you were when you found out. "Oh no," gasped my mother, tears welling up immediately in her eyes. "Gaza Explodes..." scrolled across the bottom of the screen, and plumes of smoke hung on the living room wall in high definition.
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Grassroots International Condemns Attack on Gaza Humanitarian Flotilla
Grassroots International joins our partners in Palestine and Israel – and indeed non-violent activists worldwide – in the condemnation of Israel’s attack on the Free Gaza flotilla bound for Gaza. When Israeli forces stormed a multinational humanitarian fleet on its way to Gaza – in international waters – to deliver medicines, medical equipment, building materials and food they also assaulted Nobel laureates, holocaust survivors and civilians from 40 nations.
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After Israel’s Invasion
Gaza: War on civilians in the world's largest open-air prison[1]
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Update from Gaza
With thanks in part to $80,000 dollars in generous donations made to Grassroots International in response to the Gaza Crisis, our partners in Palestine have begun the process of rebuilding their communities.
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Updates from Women’s Delegation to Gaza – Alice Walker Speaks Out
For a Grassroots International staff member and Board member, this International Women's Day offered a real glimpse at global solidarity. The two women, along with 58 other activists, writers and thinkers stepped across the rarely penetrable border into Gaza. Delegates hope to meet with their counterparts, including a number of Grassroots International partners, visit to the urban gardens of the Palestinian Agricultural Relief Committees (PARC), and meet with the Gaza Community Mental Health Program (GCMHP), whose building was severely damaged during the Israeli attack.
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Grassroots Grantee Gaza Community Mental Health Program Damaged in Attacks
Grassroots International's long time grantee, the Gaza Community Mental Health Program (GCMHP) has been hit by extensive shelling in the now weeklong military campaign against Gaza. GCMHP provides mental health services, with special emphasis on vulnerable groups such as children, women and victims of trauma and human rights violations. They are also the lead organization of the International Campaign to End the Siege of Gaza, which Grassroots International has supported in coordination with alies such as Jewish Voice for Peace and Global Exchange.
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Press Release
The Israeli shelling caused massive damage in GCMHP Headquarter in Gaza
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A Psychological Siege
Israel's siege on Gaza, now in its 19th month, has wreaked havoc on all aspects of life and significant attention has been paid in particular to the economic consequences of border closures and the blockade. However, an overlooked epidemic threatens the social and familial ties that bond the 1.5 million Palestinians in Gaza. Living under a constant state of crisis in which their livelihoods have been denied, the people of Gaza's once exemplary resilience and determination are giving way to an unfathomable sea of depression and psychological illnesses.
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End the Siege of Gaza
We are proud to announce a new campaign, coordinated by Grassroots International and Jewish Voice for Peace, together with Global Exchange and Code Pink to raise $50,000 for the International Campaign to End the Siege of Gaza. The Campaign, led by Dr. Eyad el-Serraj, is Palestinian-run and -led, but requires partnerships with people like you to succeed. Please give generously.
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The Truce of the Matter
After nearly one year of a suffocating siege imposed on Gaza by the Israeli military establishment, a truce agreement was reached between Hamas and Israel. This followed months of dedicated Egyptian good offices. Rockets launched from Gaza against Israeli settlements were to stop in return for gradually lifting the blockade. A cease-fire sustained for six months would then roll over to the West Bank. Gilad Shalit, the hostage Israeli soldier, would be released in a separate deal involving exchange of Palestinian prisoners. Future negotiations would set the terms for opening the borders between Egypt and Gaza.
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Gaza from Below
No protected person may be punished for an offence he or she has not personally committed. Collective penalties and likewise all measures of intimidation or of terrorism are prohibited.
- Fourth Geneva Convention, article 33
Nonviolence. Opportunity. Innovation. In the wake of the recent escalating violence and food insecurity in Gaza, our grassroots partners have redoubled their quest for social change and sustainability in one of the most troubled places in the world. We are humbled by their laudable tenacity in the face of massive obstacles.