WUNRN
ISRAEL-PALESTINE - MIDWIVES FOR
PEACE CELEBRATE 5TH BIRTHDAY
April 18,
2013 - Today I have the great pleasure and honor to gather with a group of
Palestinian and Isaeli midwives, mothers, activists, change makers, and
visionaries. We are celebrating the 5th birthday of this program, Midwives For
Peace. What a tender, tense, and insightful five years it has been!
It took two
years to get this group of midwives in a room together due to paperwork,
political and legal barriers, and funding. Then, on a sunny spring day in 2007,
a bus full of Palestinian midwives traveled from the West Bank to the Galilee.
I was there, waiting with the Israeli midwives for their arrival. There were
increasingly frustrated calls from the driver of the bus as they had never been
to this region before and were lost, and afraid to ask for directions or
assistance. The husband of the hosting Israeli midwife got on the phone with
the driver and in Arabic, navigated him to the birth center where we were to
meet.
The bus
drove up the hill, parked, and everyone waited. Inhaling with anticipation, we
seemed to each understand how in that moment our lives were changing. Then as
we exhaled, the Palestinian women climbed out of their bus, eyes met from
opposite sides of a war, and hearts opened. Arms outstretched, the women
embraced, smiled, laughed, and it was done. Midwives For Peace was born.
It’s been
five years, there have been wars, deaths, births, graduations, weddings,
meetings, workshops, abstracts presented, and standing ovations relished.
Friendships have forged, work shared, and a future envisioned where these
women are seen and experienced by the world as equals, colleagues, and
champions of each other.
We gather
today in Beit Jala. Midwives for Peace women are, indeed, changing the
world one birth at time. It is our great honor to bear witness to their
courage, vision, and commitment.
Sera Bonds -
Founder/COHI - Beit Jala
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Palestine-Israel
- Midwives for Peace
Midwives for Peace is a grassroots group of Palestinian and Israeli
midwives working together to ensure that childbirth is a joyous and safe
experience for women despite the armed conflict that surrounds them. Midwives for Peace saves
lives by providing critical pre-natal care and childbirth support to women in
the West Bank and
Together, Israeli and Palestinian midwives attend workshops and training
sessions, share their best practices and develop an understanding through a
common belief that regardless of the conflict raging around them, mothers and
newborns – whether Israeli or Palestinian – deserve to be safe.
By coming together from opposite sides of the Israel-Palestine border, Midwives for Peace is able
to fulfill an urgent humanitarian need, promote reproductive rights and build
peace.
Saving
Lives in Occupied Territory
Dedicated
to peace and their profession, Midwives
for Peace provides midwives with resources, training and a network
of professionals dedicated to midwifery.
Through Midwives for Peace,
The Safe Birth Project enables Palestinian women who are in labor to deliver
safely despite Israeli military roadblocks and checkpoints that prevent or
dangerously delay them from reaching hospitals in the
Certified, well-equipped midwives help ensure healthy births for women and
their babies. And midwives give women the support they need for a joyful,
empowering experience of childbirth.
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Interfaith Encounter Association also has a Midwives in Peace Group
http://interfaithencounter.wordpress.com/groupseventsprojects/recent-updates/ - Scroll down to Midwives of Peace links.
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