humanitarian support – Notes from the Far Beyond

This is a short talk I gave recently in Penzance, Cornwall, during a Palestine-support event.

Many of us get caught up in the big issues around Palestine, often paying a lot of attention to our own countries’ or international politics and inadvertently forgetting actual Palestinians in places like Gaza. Anyway, the politics is a nightmare that’s going nowhere anytime soon.

This is about making friends with an actual Gazan, taking a person-to-person approach. It can have a bigger effect that you might at first imagine. And the friendship and benefit goes both ways.

You can also find it on my podcast page at https://palden.co.uk/podcasts.html

In the talk I recommend a website run by Gazan young people: www.wearenotnumbers.org – check it out.

Thanks to Gershon Baskin of Jerusalem – a good-hearted Israeli – for a quote from his recent writing. Well done Adam Stout and Alison Dhuanna for organising the event – and thereby raising 600 GBP to help a few Gazans.

A correction: to get out of Gaza costs $5,000, and it is paid to the Egyptians at Rafah Crossing, who pay the Israelis, and both take their cut. It’s just as bad, whatever the excuse and whoever does it – exploiting people in need.

With love, Palden

By the seaside. Photo by Refaat Ibrahim of wearenotnumbers.org

I’ve been working with a village of Tuareg for ten years, in a small people-sized support operation. They live in the Sahara desert, a day away from the historic city of Timbuktu in Mali.

We restocked their goats and camels after a terrible drought, helped them dig a new well and build a small village school.

But now I need to pull out – I can’t continue with things I used to be able to do. But I don’t want to abandon them.

So this pod tells the story, and about the dilemma of a humanitarian with a need to pass this on.

With love, Palden

Thanks to Constanze Küppers in Germany for prompting me to make this pod