Wafa Halawa's Page

What motivated you (or your organization) to become involved in peace and conflict resolution?

Peace is the only way for a better world and a better life.

Please feel free to provide a short bio about yourself or the work of your organization (no more than 3 paragraphs)

I have been living in war and under occupation for more than 25 years,
I'm a simple man eager to live in peace and freedom,
I hate racism and extremists.

Please list the countries and/or regions in which you (or your organization) have direct and significant expertise

Palestine
Gaza

What is your current country of residence (or location of your organization)?

Gaza , Palestine

What is your current job (and organization) and/or where and what field are you studying?

Firefighter & recuer at Palestinian civil defense / Graduated recently from Al-Aqsa university in Gaza and got my Bachelor degree in English language.

What is your personal or organizational website?

http://www.odsg.org/co/

What is one of your favorite websites in the field? (please provide one answer per box)

http://anhri.net/en/

Which are your primary sectoral areas of expertise (or the primary sectoral areas of your organization) ?

Alternative Dispute Resolution, Civil Society, Culture, Education, Environment, Policing, Refugees

Which are your primary skills areas(or the primary skill areas of your organization)?

Advocacy, Communication, Evaluation, Training

If appropriate feel free to list several of your (or your organization's) publications

Imagine life under these conditions !!!!

Living in limbo under a foreign occupier. Having no self-determination, no right of return, and no power over your daily life. Being in constant fear, economically strangled, and collectively punished.

Having your free movement denied by enclosed population centers, closed borders, regular curfews, roadblocks, checkpoints, electric fences, and separation walls. Having your homes regularly demolished and land systematically stolen to build settlements for encroachers in violation of international law prohibiting an occupier from settling its population on conquered land.

Having your right to essential services denied - to emergency health care, education, employment, and enough food and clean water. Being forced into extreme poverty, having your crops destroyed, and being victimized by punitive taxes. Having no right for redress in the occupier's courts under laws only protecting the occupier.

Being regularly targeted by incursions and attacks on the ground and from the air. Being willfully harassed, ethnically cleansed, arrested, incarcerated, tortured, and slaughtered on any pretext, including for your right of self-defense. Having no rights on your own land in your own country for over six decades and counting. Vilified for being Muslims and called terrorists, Jihadists, crazed Arabs, and fundamentalist extremists. Victimized by a slow-motion genocide to destroy you.