Organizations on the Ground

Notes

Established in 1978 with contributions from local families, Sur Bahir Sports Club offers social, health, sports, scouting, and cultural activities to support youth in Sur Bahir and nearby areas. The club serves as a central hub for community activities, fostering unity, cooperation, and empowerment among residents. It promotes unity and cooperation and empowers local youth while fostering creativity and talent development.

Notes

The year 1948 marked one of the most tragic moments in the history of Palestine and the Palestinian people; the moment when hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were violently displaced and expelled from their homeland.

In 1983, Taawon was established by a group of diaspora Palestinians as a Palestinian nongovernmental organization that is dedicated to promoting the steadfastness of Palestine and Palestinians. Taawon is Palestine’s largest nonprofit organization with over $660 million disbursed since its founding. Taawon continues to work “to build generations of Palestinians capable of reaching their full potential, in spite of tragedies they live.”

Taawon has three areas of focus:

• Human capital (education program, mustaqbali, and the Youth Empowerment Services Program)
• Self-expression and cultural identity (Culture Program, the Old City of Jerusalem Revitalization Program, and the Palestinian Museum)
• Access to quality social services (Community Development Program)

Taawon also has four established award programs, including the Jerusalem Award “dedicated to empowering excelling NGOs that are based out of Jerusalem, and especially those that focus on strengthening Jerusalem’s social fabric and rich cultural identity.” The previous winner of this award was Palestinian Vision (in 2014).

Notes

Umm Tuba Club is a support club that brings together youth with a passion for soccer. The club fosters a sense of community cohesion and solidarity among residents. Engaging in matches with other Palestinian soccer teams from localities within the 1948 boundaries, it builds bridges, fosters unity, and strengthens solidarity. Through sports, players overcome societal divisions, thereby fostering a sense of togetherness and shared identity. 

Notes

Wadi Hilweh, an area that is part of the Palestinian Jerusalem neighborhood of Silwan, lies just outside the walls of the Old City of Jerusalem near the Dung Gate/Bab Haret al-Maghariba (also called the Silwan Gate).

Since 1967, but intensively in the past decade, without informing or taking permission from its residents, Israel has transformed Wadi Hilweh into an underground excavation site whose tunnels compromise the foundations of Palestinian homes. As well, the settler organization Elad has secretly collaborated with the Israel National Parks Association to develop a national biblical theme park there called the City of David Park, which reflects only Jewish history and heritage in the city while completely ignoring and erasing Palestinian and other groups’ heritage and roots in the city. Moreover, illegal Jewish settlements are expanding throughout the neighborhood, placing hundreds of Palestinian homes at high risk of demolition under various pretexts, such as lacking the required building permits or for “public benefit” (which means for the benefit of the Jewish public).

To counter those efforts, Wadi Hilweh Information Center (Silwanic) was established in 2009 to provide information about the history and current status of the village of Silwan. It also documents and exposes the Israeli occupations’ human rights violations focusing on the illegal settlement expansion and appropriation of Palestinian properties in Jerusalem in general and in Silwan in particular.