The International Women's Peace Service - Palestine

international | anti-war / imperialism | press release Tuesday February 17, 2004 18:04 by Emma Young - IWPS eyoung at pobox dot com www.iwps.info

Volunteers needed

THE INTERNATIONAL WOMEN'S PEACE SERVICE - PALESTINE
NEEDS WOMEN NOW...

* to spend a minimum of two weeks to three months a year in a Palestinian village in the West Bank
* to support local efforts toward nonviolent peacemaking
* to respond to any instances of injustice witnessed
* to record and report abuses of human rights both internationally
* to live and work in an international women's community side by side with Palestinians.

IWPS Palestine is a project which began in August 2002 to set up and run an International Women's House in the village of Haris, Salfit District. We provide trained women from the international community to witness, monitor, document and publicize human rights abuses; to peacefully intervene to try to stop such abuses from occurring and to support the growth of nonviolent resistance to the illegal and brutal Military Occupation of Palestinian lands in the West Bank and Gaza.

IWPS staff and volunteers live communally in a house in Haris with basic facilities and under the restrictions enforced by the illegal Israeli military occupation. Each team member stays in the village for 3 months a year. IWPS tries to ensure that there will be a continuous presence of a minimum of four team members, supplemented by volunteers
who stay for shorter periods.

CALL FOR VOLUNTEERS . . .

Volunteers are essential to our work. They reside in the house for a minimum of 2 weeks. It is essential that volunteer applicants have been involved in social justice, anti-oppression and/or nonviolent direct action work prior to their application to IWPS. The minimum age is 21 years. Our decision-making is by consensus and ideally women should have some skills in areas such as human rights monitoring or accompaniment,
report writing, photography, computing, group process, or a willingness to
learn. The working language will be English and it will be necessary to learn some
basic Arabic.

Volunteers are required to pay the following costs:
* Full board and lodging in the International Women's House of $10/per night,
* which covers all work-related expenses
* Traveling expenses to and from your home country
* We highly recommend medical insurance

S C H O L A R S H I P S . . .

IWPS strives to include women who represent the breadth of the international community. We recognize that not all women can afford to travel to Palestine
and therefore a limited number of scholarships (approximately 3 every 3
months) are available. Preference for scholarships will be given to women
who have worked on indigenous land based struggles and/or who have experience with anti-oppression work. Class, ethnicity and geographic distribution/location of origin are also important considerations.
Scholarships cover:

* Full board and lodging in the International Women's House
* Travel expenses to and from your home country
* All work-related expenses including transportation, phone calls, etc...
* Recipients of scholarships are required to raise their own spending money and are encouraged to fundraise for some of the above expenses as well.

For more information and application packs please contact one of the people below:
iwpsvolunteers@yahoo.co.uk
IWPS website: www.womenspeacepalestine.org or www.ipws.info

Mission Statement of IWPS: The IWPS (International Women's Peace Service) wishes to develop projects where there are massive, violent, human rights abuses occurring. IWPS seeks to develop nonviolent skills, training and support for intervention in such conflict situations. IWPS is an independent non-governmental organisation that is supported by
donations, grants and volunteers from global civil society. IWPS is run by women from different countries around the world and is intentionally diverse in recruiting support from a wide range of differing racial, age, religious, and cultural backgrounds.