NGO Action News – 10 November 2015

This newsletter informs about recent and upcoming activities of Civil Society Organizations affiliated with the United Nations Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People. The Committee and the Division for Palestinian Rights of the UN Secretariat provide the information “as is” without warranty of any kind, and do not accept any responsibility or liability for the accuracy, or reliability of the information contained in the websites linked in the newsletter.

NGO Action News
10 November 2015

Europe

• On 14 to 15 November, the Kingston University of London in association with Palestine Trauma Centre, UK-Palestine Mental Health Network and Palestine-UK Social Work Network will present a two day conference: Rethinking trauma and resilience in the context of political violence: new directions in research and practice. The conference will bring together diverse groups of mental health workers, social workers and academics to evaluate mental health practices in a war zone and question the traditional concept of trauma.

North America

• On 9 November, the Palestine Center in Washington, D.C. held the conference A night in Gaza with Dr. Mads Gilbert, Medical Director at the Clinic of Emergency Medicine of the University of North Norway, who documented his work at al-Shifa Hospital during the 2014 Gaza war.

• On 13 November the Center for Palestine Studies, Columbia University in New York City will present the discussion Palestinian Futures: Remembering the Nakba. Dr. Eman Abu Hanna-Nahhas, Head of the Department of Education at Teacher’s College in Haifa will discuss how collective memory is transmitted across generations and the role of narrative in social and political transformation, with a response by Professor Marianne Hirsch, Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University.

• On 14 November the DOC NYC, documentary film festival, at the School of Visual Art Theatre in New York City, will present the documentary Speed Sisters, on the first all-woman race car driving team in the Middle East.

• On 14 November, The Nourse Theatre City in San Francisco will present Wishah Palestinian Popular Dance Troupe. Proceeds will benefit organizations for Palestine and relief work in Gaza.

• On 12 November, the Israel-Palestine Working Group of NGOs (IPWG) in New York will host a conversation with Br. Peter Bray, Vice-Chancellor and Br. Stephen Tuohy, Vice- President of Bethlehem University. They will provide an update on the current situation in the OPT and how the Bethlehem University is addressing the needs of their students.

Middle East

• On 22 November, the organization Breaking the Silence will hold a guided tour in Hebron,. The tour explores the results of the principle of separation and the military control in the city from the perspective of soldiers who served there.

United Nations

• On 5 November, the UN Office at Nairobi raised the flag of the State of Palestine.

• On 9 November the Working Group of the UN Palestinian Rights Committee heard a briefing by the human rights organization Adalah on the recent repressive measures by the Israeli Government.

• The International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People will be observed on 23 November 2015 at the UN Headquarters in New York, in Geneva on 30 November and in Vienna on 24 November, as well as at UN Information Centres elsewhere.

• The Palestinian Rights Committee in cooperation with the OIC will hold the International Conference on the Question of Jerusalem in Jakarta, Indonesia on 14 to 15 December. A Civil Society Forum will be follow on 16 December.

• The Annual Report of the Palestinian Rights Committee has just been released.

• UN OCHA has published a report on casualties in Israel and in the OPT for October 2015.