Act for Awareness

"Never in history has violence been initiated by the oppressed" Paulo Freire

Are you concerned about the situation in Gaza and feel frustrated with the current political dynamic? Have you been to protests but still feel the need to find alternative and constructive ways of ensuring public awareness on the continued injustices?

If so, please consider this an invitation to be a part of something creative and powerful.

Act for Awareness is a group of four Middle Eastern women – Jana, Nour, Nora and Fifi - from various performance/arts backgrounds who felt the need to create an effective platform to engage the public on the current humanitarian crisis in Gaza. While Gaza begins to slip from the media headlines and global consciousness, the need to continuously address the ever urgent and growing humanitarian crisis is critical. We are currently collaborating to produce various interventions in several public locations around London.

Recent Interventions

On Saturday, 24th January, Act for Awareness hit the streets of London in our first ever ‘Bringing Gaza to the streets of London” creative intervention. From Borough Market and Southbank to King’s Cross and Angel, our group directly engaged passer-bys in various performances that highlighted the injustices in Gaza. In attempt to highlight the crisis in a thought provoking and educational manner, our performances reflected the urgent need to raise the level of awareness of the critical situation in Gaza in a peaceful manner. We hope that this is the first of many street performances, and we will keep you posted on future interventions.

Facts

Welcome to GAZA, an occupied territory that has faced 60 years of dispossession and 42 years of brutal military subjugation by Israel. The recent attack left over 1317 Palestinians dead (over 419 children & over 108 women) and over 5000 injured.

Israeli troops may have started to pull out, but the military occupation continues in the West Bank, and Gaza is still a big prison. Israel even refused to let in Journalists, let alone enough medicine and other needed goods such as food and water.

West Bank = A land where 2.5m Palestinians are stranded in their towns while dozens of Jew-only settlements are scattered on hilltops protected by an army. These settlers have full rights as Israeli citizens while their Palestinian neighbors are afforded none of these rights. They even have to take different roads and pass through hours of army checkpoints just to get to the next town. If this is not Apartheid, what is?

Gaza = A land only 25 miles long and 6 miles wide, houses 1.5m Palestinians, a million of whom are refugees from other Palestinian territories, forced into Gaza by Israel. Few are allowed in or out. The sea and the air and all resources are controlled by Israel. Even travel to relatives in the West Bank is virtually impossible, despite being just 30 miles away. Israel violates Geneva conventions in its violent tactics to squash any resistance. Many describe it as a concentration camp.

Act for Awareness is here today to remind you of the continued injustice and the suffering of the Palestinian people. It’s a question of basic human rights. If you would like to be involved in our next intervention, please contact us at actforawareness@googlemail.com, or join our Face Book group on line.

Peace,
Jana, Nour, Nora & Fifi