Completion of "Ahl" project for strengthening civil peace in the suburbs of Jerusalem

ACT institution for Studies and Alternative Means of Conflict Resolution concluded, on Saturday, the "Ahl" project for strengthening civil peace in the suburbs of Jerusalem. The project’s duration was seven months which included various trainings and the implementation of community-based initiatives in the suburbs of Jerusalem.

The first phase of the project included virtual training session about strategic planning and communication. These sessions focused on providing the participants with skills on dealing with one’s surrounding environment, analysis of the current situation and dynamics, and an action plan methodology. The other set of training sessions focused on lobbying and advocacy, including how to build and implement an advocacy campaign on one of the issues that poses a threat at the local level, such as the Corona pandemic, drugs, traffic, illegal cars or weak law enforcement, etc. Accordingly, three action plans were launched for various initiatives in the suburbs of Jerusalem

As for the second phase, Ahl groups began implementing youth initiatives that focused on raising awareness about COVID-19, in the northeast, northwest and southeast suburbs of Jerusalem. The activities of this campaign included distributing masks to schools and citizens walking in the streets, holding accountability sessions with Al-Eizariya, Al-Ram and Al-Jeeb municipalities, raising awareness about COVID-19 safety measures and about how to do safe weddings, drawing lines of divergence in schools to urge students to keep a safe distance among themselves, and finally hanging educational banners in several areas in the suburbs of Jerusalem.

At the end of the project, ACT for Conflict Resolution in partnership with the Palestinian Police held a closing ceremony for the graduation of 30 volunteers from the suburbs of Jerusalem, in which certificates were distributed. The ceremony was attended by the Foundation’s Executive Director, Mr. Mohammad Hadieh, a member of ACT’s Administrative Board, Fadi Abbas, the Director of the Jerusalem Suburbs Police, Colonel Fawaz Talib, the Director of community police program Colonel Fareed Ladadweh, the Director of Public Relations and Media Department in the Jerusalem Suburban Police, Colonel Ahed Hasayen, and a group of police and directors of police offices in the suburbs. It is worth mentioning that during the ceremony, the Foundation honored Colonel Talib and a number of policemen who devoted their time and effort to complete the project.
This project was implemented by ACT for Conflict Resolution in partnership with the Palestinian Police and funded by Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ). The project aims to involve the local community by contributing to raising awareness about issues of maintaining security and public order, strengthening the capacities of young people to be agents of positive change based on respect for the rule of law in the local community, to contribute to civil peace, and building and developing the theoretical and practical skills of the participants in dealing with the conflict by resorting to dialogue, adopting legal mediation, and fruitful and constructive negotiation, as alternatives to violence and requiring one’s right.

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