Dear Friends,
It has proven an important year in Amal-Tikva, as we solidify our strategy, reputation, and program curricula. I'm proud to say that quantitatively, qualitatively and anecdotally--our method is working. The NGOs and the leaders we engage are more strategic, more sustainable, and are starting to scale.
Coming back from maternity leave, I was a bit nervous to see what had changed. I knew that my co-founder Basheer was holding it all together-- and that each team member reached and pushed the programs to new limits. But honestly I could not be more impressed by the results. Their work is awe inspiring:
Fieldbuilding360
Ghadeer Sabat took the lead on Fieldbuilding360, our intensive strategic planning program for peacebuilding organizations. Bringing in more Palestinian NGOs, we now offer the program and all materials fully in Arabic (and also in Hebrew!). In total we have served 22 NGOs to date with more on the way--and love bringing them all together. One quote from a CEO in the program:
"We worked with a private consultant for 6 months, yet made more progress toward a clear theory of change here in 3 hours!"
Amal-Tikva Leadership Institute (ATLI)
Adi Nassar and Ariel Markose lead the second cohort of ATLI, offering professional development and peer support to local activists and program leaders. Cohort Two's 14 professionals recently returned from Belfast where they met peacemakers and peers, in partnership with ReThinking Conflict. We are so thankful to the Jewish Federation of Greater Washington for supporting this project, as the field has seen nothing like it. One participant shared with us:
"It's true that the skills we learned will help me be a better professional, and I do appreciate it. But the most important piece is that I feel we are really a community. I don't feel alone in this work anymore, and I can't thank you enough for that."Embodying Peace
This time last year, Adi Nassar suggested that the way we run Embodying Peace does not serve the field as well as it could. We reevaluated our model and decided to move from international interns to local, from virtual education and internships to in-person. Adi led the first cohort of the new model this year and the results are intense. Each of the 13 Israeli and Palestinian participants reported in their exit interviews that the program was too short and that they wish to continue to engage the group more, to learn more, and to intern more. (My favorite kind of problem...) We look forward to following up with their leadership development plans, mentorship and opportunities to continue to grow individually and together.
Bringing it all together...
Holding it all together is our brilliant Ariel Markose, who meets with NGO leaders, activists, donors, and external partners at all levels.
It was Ariel who noticed that we need to build the Fieldbuilding 2.0 program, a one-month intensive consulting program for NGOs who have graduated from Fieldbuilding360 to focus on specific capacity issues such as marketing, fundraising, organizational structure, or program design. She and Ghadeer piloted this with 6 of our NGOs and more will be joining in the coming months.
Ariel and Ghadeer have also organized monthly gatherings for the NGO leaders to share their experiences and learn new skills together. Whether it's meeting the political tension of the moment or how to use ChatGPT, the community is enjoying learning, growing, laughing, crying and eating together.
In other news...
We have deepened our partnership with the Swiss-based foundation B8 of Hope and now manage their grants process.We also serve as their local presence on the ground. It is an absolute honor and privilege to work with Mehra, David, Leila and Arun from B8 of Hope and to bring their grantees and our NGOs into one network.
I'll be in Washington, DC next month to address the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and speak at a round table at the United States Institute of Peace. We have become a leading voice from the ground to speak about MEPPA's potential implications at the grassroots and policy levels locally. Let me know if you'll be in DC the week of July 17 and would like to come to the roundtable at USIP or get together for coffee!
That was a lot. Thank you for reading this far!
We could not do this work without your trust and confidence.
THANK YOU to our donors, NGOs, activists, and partners for believing in our ability to help peacebuilding efforts scale and become sustainable. We're all in this together.
Thank you again,
Meredith Rothbart
Amal-Tikva CEO