like all of us there are many things I
find important two of them have
particularly shaped my life two aspects
of my life that suffer a similar fate
and continued to fight for their space
in the world at large the first is being
from the third generation of Palestinian
Arabs of 1948 the year of the Nakba or
Palestinian citizens of Israel and the
second being what I do as a profession
which is fight for the mental health of
refugees these seemingly unrelated
subjects are unseen sidelined and
misunderstood and I believe we have yet
to witness the dramatic repercussions of
the signals today I’m going to bring
these subjects to light to try to
attempt to show a different face to what
you might already know I have a complex
background I descend from the first
generation of Arabs of 48 I’m a
Christian Palestinian women with an
Israeli passport a minority within a
minority within a minority how to refer
to us is highly politicized issue both
in Palestinian and Israeli society we
are made up of Christians Muslims and
Jews and we are the Palestinians who
remained on their land or nearby land in
the State of Israel when it was declared
by the United Nations in 1948 creating
through the years 20% of the whole
population and to this day there are
many people who are still living and are
considered as refugees on their own land
many including Palestinians will dispute
our identity from Europeans I often get
very confused faces but what makes us
who we are and how we define ourselves
is both political and subjective my
views have been shaped by experiencing
life through different narratives as an
Israeli citizen with subjective freedoms
and as a Palestinian with targeted
prejudice for most of my life I lived
70 meters to the to Israel’s separation
while in East Jerusalem and 70 meters to
the east of Rome chuckles I had to pass
the checkpoint and show my ID to
soldiers on a daily basis to go to
school to go to the store to see my
friends I speak Arabic at home but I’m
also fluent in Hebrew and I’m okay with
English and my childhood was split
between the tenth city of Jerusalem
where my parents chose to raise me and
my siblings and the little northern
villages of cathuria sieve and kefir
Cana where they are from my school years
were split between Palestinian
missionary run school American run
school and in Israeli Anglican
international school and my dad was a
human rights lawyer working to defend
the Palestinian people’s rights in
Israeli courts the dynamic nature of my
life was to say the least confusing as a
young adult I’ve often felt out of place
in my surroundings because I was labeled
either to Palestinian or to Israeli
depending on who I was speaking to and
where I was but the way I see it yes we
hold Israeli citizenship but our food
our history our poetry or art or music
or idiosyncrasies or funerals or
weddings they are all Palestinian and
that is who we are being a female Arab
living in Israel it was also not easy to
express emotions of politics of
sexuality and my interest in photography
created a way for me to explore the
issues I care about it was a way for me
to express the many feelings and
conflicting forces that shaped my life I
could use photographs to express love
anger frustrations and it was an outlet
which taught me to be stronger
individually but most importantly for my
community because I learned that I can
take challenges and turn them into a
positive and active source of power I’ve
spent most of my life fighting both
personally and professionally both
inside my community and outside of it
for the image of Arabs of 48
because I believe it’s very important to
hold on and to respect our identity
without fearing their political
repercussions from both sides and using
our talents and our history and our
uniqueness to be a bridge in the world
so I believe it’s very natural that I
ended up working for an organization
that does just that humanity crew
founded by two Arabs of 48 and dear
friends of mine we are an international
aid organization with a mission to bring
mental health to the forefront of
humanitarian aid we foster volunteering
community work our language our history
our political status at home and use it
to serve the refugee community in Europe
who have suffered immeasurable losses we
do this through community-based
activities focus groups research
trainings by raising awareness and our
organization started at the shorelines
the camps the hospitals and anywhere
else we could be providing psychosocial
support to mainly Syrian and Iraqi
refugees in Greece in 2015 at the height
of the crisis when people were offering
essential things like blankets tents
food medicine we were the ones who were
looking out for their minds their souls
and making sure that what they have just
witnessed and survived will not cause
irreversible damage in their future we
were using our own refugee history our
similar culture and our shared language
to provide much-needed mental health
support to people who are so close to us
both geographically and culturally yet
so far away because of our political
history it is such a difficult task to
explain the implications of trauma in
moments of extreme stress to the
humanitarian world people wanted to make
sure that the bodies were still
breathing which is undeniably important
but they forget to also take care of the
mind and this we believe is just as
crucial for the refugees well-being as
anything else my first experience with
Humanity crew was with I’m at my
professional career before I started
working for the organization was
human rights NGOs and I have spent a lot
of time doing fieldwork in Palestine so
naturally I have heard and documented
many heartbreaking stories so when I met
him at I was a little bit shocked how
deeply affected me he was a young bright
boy with a bowl haircut who at 10:00 was
the main caretaker of his mother and his
two handicapped brothers in a foreign
country and he does not speak the
language he had witnessed the murder of
his father and his sister before taking
the journey of death to the mountains of
Turkey and then on a tiny rubber boat to
lesbos they were one of the families we
had supported from the beginning in
Greece by providing them with
much-needed mental health support and
when I met him on my first mission in
Athens he’s his bright smile completely
melted my heart I’m at refused to go to
school refused to leave his mother and
his brothers for very long periods of
time he took on way more than he can
handle and mentally was going through
what no kid should ever go through he
had a house clothes papers money a phone
he played with his friends he laughed
with me when I took him to buy candy in
the store he knew exactly the kinds he
liked he was a normal boy or at least
that’s how it appeared inside he had
witnessed unspoken atrocities his mind
was destroyed he was traumatized and
what shocked me most was that he could
have easily been me
my sister my little niece if history had
slightly dealt us a different card the
implications of war have left many
refugees and asylum seekers vulnerable
to trauma and stress the mental health
of the refugee community is further
aggravated by other challenges like
integration racism resettlement culture
shock and the dangerous living in many
host countries the implications of these
events on the refugee community are
unseen tremendous and complex and likely
to be manifested in many mental health
issues which will drastically affect
their future
and the future of their host countries
think of animat or any other person who
received the blanket food shelter money
they go on to resettle in another
country but no one has ever bothered to
provide them with the proper mental
health support the moment they are
resettled into the into their host
country their defense mechanisms fall
down and all the personal trauma their
sufferings and everything else they had
just witnessed floods in becomes
difficult to deal with and goes unseen
and undealt with we want them to be
active healthy happy members of society
the host society should want this and
the humanitarian organizations should
want and prioritize this I find it very
natural and empowering that an
organization started by forty-eighters
is doing the work that we are doing we
have come to use our narrative and
turned it into knowledge and power and
for once I feel like as a Palestinian
I’m not just a victim of a conflict and
I don’t have to be passive but instead I
decided to be active by supporting my
community and helping others I believe
we can all do this we can all be bridges
if we are able to unravel the
complexities within us and our
surroundings and utilize it for the
benefits of our societies I’m not a
dreamy person no one has ever been able
to permanently solve the world’s
problems like the world today there has
always been many struggles facing
humanity but history has also taught us
taught me that within all the wars
against humanity there have always been
small spaces pockets for individuals and
groups to try and minimalize the
personal Agony’s and sufferings of
others and that’s where I find myself
it’s also I work with such passion for
humanity crew and why we seek to support
other grassroots organizations we need
to be a different driving force we need
to show the other face of the unseen
sidelined and misunderstood and in turn
that is how we show
the evil in the world the other face of
humanity thank you [Applause]
find important two of them have
particularly shaped my life two aspects
of my life that suffer a similar fate
and continued to fight for their space
in the world at large the first is being
from the third generation of Palestinian
Arabs of 1948 the year of the Nakba or
Palestinian citizens of Israel and the
second being what I do as a profession
which is fight for the mental health of
refugees these seemingly unrelated
subjects are unseen sidelined and
misunderstood and I believe we have yet
to witness the dramatic repercussions of
the signals today I’m going to bring
these subjects to light to try to
attempt to show a different face to what
you might already know I have a complex
background I descend from the first
generation of Arabs of 48 I’m a
Christian Palestinian women with an
Israeli passport a minority within a
minority within a minority how to refer
to us is highly politicized issue both
in Palestinian and Israeli society we
are made up of Christians Muslims and
Jews and we are the Palestinians who
remained on their land or nearby land in
the State of Israel when it was declared
by the United Nations in 1948 creating
through the years 20% of the whole
population and to this day there are
many people who are still living and are
considered as refugees on their own land
many including Palestinians will dispute
our identity from Europeans I often get
very confused faces but what makes us
who we are and how we define ourselves
is both political and subjective my
views have been shaped by experiencing
life through different narratives as an
Israeli citizen with subjective freedoms
and as a Palestinian with targeted
prejudice for most of my life I lived
70 meters to the to Israel’s separation
while in East Jerusalem and 70 meters to
the east of Rome chuckles I had to pass
the checkpoint and show my ID to
soldiers on a daily basis to go to
school to go to the store to see my
friends I speak Arabic at home but I’m
also fluent in Hebrew and I’m okay with
English and my childhood was split
between the tenth city of Jerusalem
where my parents chose to raise me and
my siblings and the little northern
villages of cathuria sieve and kefir
Cana where they are from my school years
were split between Palestinian
missionary run school American run
school and in Israeli Anglican
international school and my dad was a
human rights lawyer working to defend
the Palestinian people’s rights in
Israeli courts the dynamic nature of my
life was to say the least confusing as a
young adult I’ve often felt out of place
in my surroundings because I was labeled
either to Palestinian or to Israeli
depending on who I was speaking to and
where I was but the way I see it yes we
hold Israeli citizenship but our food
our history our poetry or art or music
or idiosyncrasies or funerals or
weddings they are all Palestinian and
that is who we are being a female Arab
living in Israel it was also not easy to
express emotions of politics of
sexuality and my interest in photography
created a way for me to explore the
issues I care about it was a way for me
to express the many feelings and
conflicting forces that shaped my life I
could use photographs to express love
anger frustrations and it was an outlet
which taught me to be stronger
individually but most importantly for my
community because I learned that I can
take challenges and turn them into a
positive and active source of power I’ve
spent most of my life fighting both
personally and professionally both
inside my community and outside of it
for the image of Arabs of 48
because I believe it’s very important to
hold on and to respect our identity
without fearing their political
repercussions from both sides and using
our talents and our history and our
uniqueness to be a bridge in the world
so I believe it’s very natural that I
ended up working for an organization
that does just that humanity crew
founded by two Arabs of 48 and dear
friends of mine we are an international
aid organization with a mission to bring
mental health to the forefront of
humanitarian aid we foster volunteering
community work our language our history
our political status at home and use it
to serve the refugee community in Europe
who have suffered immeasurable losses we
do this through community-based
activities focus groups research
trainings by raising awareness and our
organization started at the shorelines
the camps the hospitals and anywhere
else we could be providing psychosocial
support to mainly Syrian and Iraqi
refugees in Greece in 2015 at the height
of the crisis when people were offering
essential things like blankets tents
food medicine we were the ones who were
looking out for their minds their souls
and making sure that what they have just
witnessed and survived will not cause
irreversible damage in their future we
were using our own refugee history our
similar culture and our shared language
to provide much-needed mental health
support to people who are so close to us
both geographically and culturally yet
so far away because of our political
history it is such a difficult task to
explain the implications of trauma in
moments of extreme stress to the
humanitarian world people wanted to make
sure that the bodies were still
breathing which is undeniably important
but they forget to also take care of the
mind and this we believe is just as
crucial for the refugees well-being as
anything else my first experience with
Humanity crew was with I’m at my
professional career before I started
working for the organization was
human rights NGOs and I have spent a lot
of time doing fieldwork in Palestine so
naturally I have heard and documented
many heartbreaking stories so when I met
him at I was a little bit shocked how
deeply affected me he was a young bright
boy with a bowl haircut who at 10:00 was
the main caretaker of his mother and his
two handicapped brothers in a foreign
country and he does not speak the
language he had witnessed the murder of
his father and his sister before taking
the journey of death to the mountains of
Turkey and then on a tiny rubber boat to
lesbos they were one of the families we
had supported from the beginning in
Greece by providing them with
much-needed mental health support and
when I met him on my first mission in
Athens he’s his bright smile completely
melted my heart I’m at refused to go to
school refused to leave his mother and
his brothers for very long periods of
time he took on way more than he can
handle and mentally was going through
what no kid should ever go through he
had a house clothes papers money a phone
he played with his friends he laughed
with me when I took him to buy candy in
the store he knew exactly the kinds he
liked he was a normal boy or at least
that’s how it appeared inside he had
witnessed unspoken atrocities his mind
was destroyed he was traumatized and
what shocked me most was that he could
have easily been me
my sister my little niece if history had
slightly dealt us a different card the
implications of war have left many
refugees and asylum seekers vulnerable
to trauma and stress the mental health
of the refugee community is further
aggravated by other challenges like
integration racism resettlement culture
shock and the dangerous living in many
host countries the implications of these
events on the refugee community are
unseen tremendous and complex and likely
to be manifested in many mental health
issues which will drastically affect
their future
and the future of their host countries
think of animat or any other person who
received the blanket food shelter money
they go on to resettle in another
country but no one has ever bothered to
provide them with the proper mental
health support the moment they are
resettled into the into their host
country their defense mechanisms fall
down and all the personal trauma their
sufferings and everything else they had
just witnessed floods in becomes
difficult to deal with and goes unseen
and undealt with we want them to be
active healthy happy members of society
the host society should want this and
the humanitarian organizations should
want and prioritize this I find it very
natural and empowering that an
organization started by forty-eighters
is doing the work that we are doing we
have come to use our narrative and
turned it into knowledge and power and
for once I feel like as a Palestinian
I’m not just a victim of a conflict and
I don’t have to be passive but instead I
decided to be active by supporting my
community and helping others I believe
we can all do this we can all be bridges
if we are able to unravel the
complexities within us and our
surroundings and utilize it for the
benefits of our societies I’m not a
dreamy person no one has ever been able
to permanently solve the world’s
problems like the world today there has
always been many struggles facing
humanity but history has also taught us
taught me that within all the wars
against humanity there have always been
small spaces pockets for individuals and
groups to try and minimalize the
personal Agony’s and sufferings of
others and that’s where I find myself
it’s also I work with such passion for
humanity crew and why we seek to support
other grassroots organizations we need
to be a different driving force we need
to show the other face of the unseen
sidelined and misunderstood and in turn
that is how we show
the evil in the world the other face of
humanity thank you [Applause]
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