The Lutheran World Federation
Department for World Service
Jerusalem Program

TEXT for PowerPoint Presentation
(revised July 22, 2006)

Slide #1-- Title Page [no text]

[Introduction]

2-- The Lutheran World Federation's Jerusalem program has been serving Palestinian refugees and others living in poverty for over 55 years. The LWF brings hope and healing through projects related to health, education, and humanitarian aid in the occupied Palestinian Territories.

[Overview – the Wall]

3-- Since the beginning of the second intifada in 2000, LWF staff have been pushed to the limits of their creativity and steadfastness in order to overcome many and varied obstacles to the delivery of humanitarian services.

4-- The unilateral decision by the Israeli Government to build a Separation Wall around Palestinian cities and villages increased the difficulties that Palestinian patients, hospital staff, students, and trainers face on a daily basis in order to reach the Augusta Victoria Hospital or the Vocational Training Centers in Beit Hanina and Ramallah.

5-- In addition to other measures designed to restrict movement, like checkpoints and permits, the construction of the Separation Wall inevitably severs people from roads, fields, jobs, schools, hospitals, and family members.

6-- Such a wall or fence running through the neighborhoods of any city would have severe humanitarian consequences for its residents. It is no different for Palestinians. The Separation Wall is a source of daily tension and conflict, imposing economic and humanitarian burdens and undermining the security and peace it is intended to achieve.

7-- The Wall being built around Jerusalem separates the city from the rest of the Palestinian territories and undermines Jerusalem as the center of Palestinian society.

[Augusta Victoria Hospital]

8-- The Augusta Victoria Hospital, located in Jerusalem on the Mount of Olives, is one of the oldest of the LWF’s Jerusalem projects.

9-- Since 1950, the LWF has been managing the Augusta Victoria Hospital, known as AVH, and caring for the property it holds in trusteeship for the Kaiserin Auguste Victoria Foundation.

10-- The hospital serves all in need, regardless of race, religion, nationality, gender, or ability to pay, but does so with an emphasis on helping refugees and others living in poverty.

[“Hope and Health across the Wall” Busing Program]

11-- Muna and Hadiyyah, ages 12 and 14, depend on the Lutheran World Federation bus that comes to their West Bank village.

12-- Twice a week Muna and Hadiyyah hop on the bus in order to reach the pediatric dialysis treatment unit at AVH.

13-- This bus is their lifeline to specialty health care services available to them only in Jerusalem at AVH.

14-- Their dialysis treatment takes four hours to run beginning at 7:00 a.m. During this time the children sing, draw, and even dance together to pass the time.

15-- They tire easily because of their condition and treatment. Around 11:00 a.m. their treatment for that day is finished and they pack up and head back home on the bus, hopeful, confident, and with their dignity intact.

[Patients’ Rights to Accessible Healthcare]

16-- The LWF, like other NGOs in Jerusalem, asserts the rights of patients and humanitarian staff to access their health care facility despite the Israeli checkpoints and the Separation Wall that is being built around Jerusalem.

17-- Often, if not always, the realities of conflict and violence, hate and mistrust, take their heaviest toll on children like Muna and Haddiyah and others who are most vulnerable in society.

18-- And often, humanitarian agencies like the LWF, are torn between the need to deliver specific lifesaving services and the moral duty to speak out for the basic rights of people burdened by the harsh realities of the political turmoil.

19-- By negotiating with the Israeli authorities in order to get permission to operate a busing system that allows us to move patients and hospital staff in and out of Jerusalem with relative ease, we assume the timely and proper delivery of care to patients, but we also run the risk of appearing to accept as normal “The Separation Wall” and the fragmentation of Palestinian communities. We are confronted by this dilemma every day.

20-- The program has four routes that connect the hospital to the Palestinian areas served by the hospital.

21-24-- The busing program helps to preserve the historical connectedness of Jerusalem to the West Bank and to break through the isolation imposed by the Wall. This program helps to preserve the character of Jerusalem as a shared city between Jews, Christians, and Muslims, and between Palestinians and Israelis. A shared Jerusalem is a key element to a durable peace and genuine reconciliation between Palestinians and Israelis.


[Augusta Victoria Hospital Cancer Care Center]

25-- Almost ten years ago, AVH decided to expand into the area of cancer treatment and to fulfill in yet another way the hospital’s mission to provide needed services to refugees and others living in poverty.

26-- Three years ago the hospital started to provide chemotherapy services through a complete medical oncology program supported by a strong tradition at the hospital in internal medicine services. The unit proved to be a total success by all medical standards and has received the acknowledgement and support of many regional centers that are of international repute. The unit provides basic medical oncology services and acts as a referral unit for the two other governmental hospitals that provide basic chemotherapy services.

27-- The radiation oncology unit, the only one of its kind in Palestine, was completed toward the end of 2004. The work on commissioning the linear accelerator started in January of 2005, and the first patients were treated in August 2005. In its first four months of operation, the radiation oncology unit treated over 1,000 patients, and the unit is steadily running at capacity, treating as many as 35 patients each day.

28-- The AVH Cancer Care Center includes a medical oncology unit, a radiation oncology unit, a surgical oncology unit, and a psycho-social unit. An additional unit will be set-up within the pediatric department to care for children with solid tumors and leukemia.

29-- The hospital staff find fulfillment in their services to cancer patients. They help to alleviate the suffering of a very special segment of the patient population and they do so while administering very difficult treatment protocols and preserving the patients’ comfort, dignity, and overall quality of life.


[AVH Diabetes Program]

30-- For the last few years, AVH has been working to establish a new approach to community involvement that will change some of the traditional beliefs related to the role of the hospital in the community.

31-- As AVH was in the process of defining a new community role, DanChurchAid, a long time supporter and partner of AVH, came with a project for diabetics in partnership with the World Diabetes Foundation. The foundation agreed to fund a “Diabetes Prevention and Nutrition Counseling” project for the Palestinians served by AVH.

32-- The hospital quickly accepted and mobilized resources to set up this project. Rather than merely treating and medicating diabetes, as most local hospitals do, AVH focuses also on the preventative side of the disease, teaching how lifestyle and diet can affect diabetes patients and how others can prevent development of the condition.

33-- In 2006 the diabetes program expanded to include a foot clinic branch. Also funded by DanChurchAid, the program involved sending podiatrists from Denmark to AVH for two-week periods, working with the permanent staff and teaching foot care techniques and treatments. The loss of sensation to the extremities results in a prevalence of foot injuries and infections for diabetics, and this rotation of podiatrists adds a broad range of experience and expertise to the foot clinic.

34-- The future plan of the center is to use the same model for establishing an institute inclusive of all non-communicable diseases, such as diabetes, coronary artery disease, hypertension, and cancer. The institute will combine the same three objectives of treatment, professional education, and health promotion and prevention.


["Making Peace through Health" Program]

35-- AVH supports a number of programs that include Palestinian and Israeli medical and health professionals who engage in activities centered around serving patients and developing overall medical knowledge on both sides.

The Israel-Palestine conflict is a long conflict consuming the life of both nations. It has cut deeply into each individual and community, to the point where no one can say they have not been victimized at one level or another.

36-- The general aim of the “Making Peace through Health” program is to promote peace, mutual respect, understanding and reconciliation through professional dialogue. Israeli partners in this program include reputable Israeli hospitals and non-governmental organizations.

Even in the midst of intense periods of conflict during the second uprising, the program managed to grow. The hospital and the partners involved in this program are discussing ways to sustain the program. They are doing so because of great medical and health benefits, but also because of the success in creating friendships that are the seeds of equitable peace negotiations and reconciliation.


[Village Health Program]

37-- The LWF’s Village Health Program was established in the early 1950s and quickly became one of the most important healthcare programs in the area following the 1948 war.

38-- Access to areas near the 1949 Armistice Line (Green Line) was difficult between 1948 and 1967, so the Jordanian Government relied on relief agencies such as the LWF to provide services to the villages near the Line. The LWF Village Health Program was designed to serve such areas that were un-served or under-served.

39-- Now, over fifty years later, the LWF still operates clinics in four villages near the Green Line and dispatches teams of nurses, physicians, and health staff to them daily.

40-- Through the Village Health Program, the hospital is able to reach patients who are unable to come to the hospital. These patients live in areas that are isolated and denied access to health care due to checkpoints, the Separation Wall, or the lack of health delivery alternatives.

41-- The aim of this LWF program is to increase the level of care gradually to include some urgent care. The evening and night staff on duty will be from the village itself to facilitate better services and AVH will serve as a consultation and referral center for professionals working evenings and late hours.


[Vocational Training Program]

42-- The LWF’s Vocational Training program has been guiding and strengthening Palestinian youth since 1949. The vocational training program began as the Lutheran Trade School on the LWF Mount of Olives campus.

43-- Originally, three-year training programs were offered in carpentry, auto-mechanics, and metalwork. In 1964, with funding from Sweden, the Vocational Training Center, known as the VTC, moved from the Mount of Olives to a new, larger facility just to the north of Jerusalem in Beit Hanina, and gradually added courses in plumbing, heating, and telecommunications.

44-- Forty years later, the LWF vocational training program consists of two training centers as well as an outreach program, and it continues to be a model in the Palestinian territories.

[The Vocational Training Centers]

45-- The importance of vocational education and training is constantly on the rise at this time of rapid technological development in Palestine. The quality, as well as quantity, of education and training is crucially important to this country as it strives to maintain its economic growth and overall viability. An investment in vocational training is therefore an investment in the future of the nation.

46-- A special feature of the educational policy of the LWF’s Vocational Training program is to ensure that theoretical and practical training are linked as closely as possible right from the start. The program is very successful in its levels of production and in creating professional links with the local market. Such links added to the quality of education and training provided by the LWF.

47-- The Vocational Training Center (VTC) in Beit Hanina offers programs in carpentry, auto-mechanics, metalworking, telecommunications, and plumbing and heating. For the two years of training, trainees study through a curriculum combining hands-on production with theory and methodology. Production for various local businesses and organizations gives trainees a chance to create market-quality goods and provides experience working for clients.

48-- The VTC has been a model for vocational institutions in the Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) system of the Palestinian Authority (PA). The VT directors have participated in developing a national strategic plan of the new TVET in Palestine. The richness of experience and the quality of training demonstrated by the VTP has influenced many decision makers in the PA ministries to follow some of the training models pioneered by the VTC and the VTCR.

49-- In 2004, we opened a new training facility in the West Bank city of Ramallah. Forty-three trainees were enrolled in the inaugural class at the VTCR and there are now over 60 trainees in the one-year program. The VTCR collaborates with over 100 workplaces where trainees learn under an apprenticeship program or where other students will train in the future. In 2005 the VTCR expanded its outreach to youth in villages, offering short courses through mobile training.

50-- The centers in Beit Hanina and in Ramallah provide youth with a creative outlet for their energy and give them skills to compete in the difficult job market.

51-- Access to the VT centers is becoming increasingly difficult for the trainees due to the travel restrictions and the growing amounts of time and money necessary for transportation. Abdullah, a student at the VTCR, lives in a town just a short distance from Ramallah, but it takes him an hour to navigate the network of road closures and checkpoints.

52-- Abdullah is one of eight children, and his father, who works in construction, has been unable to find more than five days of work each month since restrictions were placed on travel out of Ramallah. Like 60 percent of Palestinians in Gaza and over 40 percent in the West Bank, Abdullah’s family lives below the poverty line.

53-- The VTCR was opened, in part, for students like Abdullah who live in the West Bank. The path of the Separation Wall arbitrarily places the VTC on the Jerusalem-side of The Wall, and out of reach for Abdullah. Even within the West Bank travel is difficult, but the presence of the VTCR in Ramallah has made vocational training more accessible to students.

54-- The students who still travel from the West Bank to the VTC in Beit Hanina are required to have travel permits, and the LWF is intervening with Israeli authorities in order to attempt to secure permits so that registered students can continue to cross through checkpoints in order to reach the center.

55-- The LWF vocational training program has once again shown the vision and agility needed to respond to the ever-changing political and economic situation in Jerusalem and the West Bank.

56-- Unfortunately, establishing a satellite program in Ramallah and seeking permits for West Bankers to enter Jerusalem are temporary measures which do not fundamentally address the fact that Palestinian communities are being cut off from each other, and that Jerusalem, through the Israeli government’s policy of separation, is increasingly isolated.

57-- This vocational training program continues to be known for its excellence and professionalism and for the hope it inspires in young women and men.


[Telecommunications Training for Women]

58-- On July 3rd, 2006, the fifth group of female graduates walked across the stage at the LWF’s Vocational Training Center in Beit Hanina to receive their certificates in the field of telecommunications. They were part of the 54th graduating class of the center.

59-- Including women for the first time in a male-oriented secondary industrial school/vocational training center has been possible because of the support system provided by LWF.

60-- The vocational training opportunities in Beit Hanina and Ramallah, through the presence of a female director and two female trainers, provide encouragement and role models for the female trainees.


[Scholarship Program]

61-- The LWF’s Jerusalem program operates a Scholarship Program to assist young people within the local community to further their education through attendance at university. This program offers financial assistance to approximately 25 students a year. Candidates are chosen based on financial need and academic excellence. The assistance is generally in the form of a loan, but grants are given to those who have verifiable financial or physical circumstances that justify a grant.


[Workshop for the Blind]

62-- The Workshops for the Blind were started in 1968 with workshops in Bethlehem, Jerusalem, Nablus, and Tulkarem. In these workshops, blind workers manufactured a variety of cane products (including baskets and rug-beaters), brooms and brushes. In 2000, the Jerusalem Workshop merged with another workshop for the blind in Jerusalem, and LWF-Jerusalem stepped into a supportive role for the resulting workshop.

Today, only the Bethlehem workshop remains as an LWF-Jerusalem project, although LWF-Jerusalem still provides a safety net of support for the other workshops. The Bethlehem workshop functions semi-autonomously with the support of the LWF. The LWF-Jerusalem program assists the workshop by paying rent for the facility, supplying the materials required for the manufacture of brushes and brooms, and taking care of health insurance for the workers.

63-- The workers themselves manage the workshop, and their salaries come from the sales of their handiwork. In this way, the employees of the workshop are able to support themselves and their families with dignity.

Unlike similar projects in which workers from marginalized groups produce goods for sale to tourists, the Workshops for the Blind have always produced goods that are in demand in the local community.


[Humanitarian Supplies]

64-- The LWF Jerusalem program distributes humanitarian supplies and basic necessities to refugees and people living in poverty in order to meet immediate needs. The supplies often include handmade quilts, blankets, sewing fabric and sewing kits, sweaters, health kits, school kits, baby kits, toys, and soap.

65--Recipients in 2005 included the Future Generation Kindergarten in Tulkarm refugee camp and the Lazarus Home for Girls. The students at the Tulkarm kindergarten each received a teddy bear with his or her name on it, as the school has almost no toys for the children.

66-- The girls at Lazarus Home, a home for orphaned or homeless children in Palestine, received school kits and homemade quilts donated by Lutheran congregations in the United States and shipped to Jerusalem by Lutheran World Relief.

67-- Donations from Lutheran World Relief and other partners make it possible for the LWF to touch the lives of those most in need across a variety of boundaries and to promote reconciliation and cooperation in the community.

[Tax Case]
68-- The LWF continues to work for a negotiated end to the current tax dispute with the Israeli government. Recognizing the value of the LWF’s humanitarian services to Palestine refugees, Jordan (in 1966) and Israel (in 1967) both granted the LWF full and comprehensive tax exemptions.
69-- Unfortunately, the taxes now claimed by the Israeli Tax Department put the LWF programs and all the services they provide to Palestinians in East Jerusalem and the West Bank at risk. The LWF wants the State of Israel to reaffirm the Lutheran World Federation’s comprehensive tax exemption as per the 1967 agreement. Maintaining the LWF’s tax exemption or reaching a mutually acceptable solution that protects the LWF’s capacity to deliver vital humanitarian services is essential.
70-- More information and updates about the tax case can be found on the website of the LWF Jerusalem program: www.lwfjerusalem.org.



[LWF Guest Facilities]

71-- The Mount of Olives campus is host to numerous guests every year. The Guest House run by the LWF is a community of friends and associates of LWF-Jerusalem, including long-term residents and short-term visitors, here to work in cooperation with the churches in the Holy Land.

72-- The Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine and Israel (EAPPI) has been housing its Jerusalem teams on the LWF campus since the program’s inception.

73-- The Mount of Olives campus is also the location of the offices of several non-governmental organizations and the residences of their staff. The campus is a community of dedicated people working in the areas of humanitarian relief and development.

74-- The Ascension Church and Tower, managed by the German Center for Tourists and Pilgrims, is open to the public.


[Olive Oil from the Mount of Olives]

75-- Each year, the LWF harvests and presses olives from the 800 trees on the LWF property on the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem. Some of the oil is used in the AVH kitchen. The rest is available to LWF visitors and friends in hand-blown bottles made by Palestinian artisans working in Hebron using recycled glass.

76-- Donations for the olive oil go to the hospital’s “Fund for the Poor” in order to offset the hospital’s operational costs and help make it possible for the LWF to continue to provide health care to Palestinian refugees and others living in poverty.

You may pick up some bottles of olive oil on your next visit to the LWF Mount of Olives campus or ask us to ship them to you. The bottled oil has proven to be a popular fundraiser at churches and community groups.

77-- You are welcome to join us during the olive harvest, usually from October 15 to the end of November. If you are planning to visit Jerusalem as a pilgrim or tourist, please consider dedicating a half day or more to volunteering in the LWF’s olive groves on the Mount of Olives.

78-- It is a marvelous experience! Students and others here for a longer period could split their time between olive picking in the early mornings and/or late afternoons and exploring Jerusalem and its environs during the rest of the day.


[Preserving the Mount of Olives Property]

79-- A major part of the mission of The Lutheran World Federation’s Department for World Service Jerusalem Program is to protect and preserve the Mount of Olives property.

80-- An earthquake in 2004 resulted in structural damage to the northern face of Augusta Victoria Hospital. In 2006, repairs have been made to this portion of the building in order to prevent further damage from the frequent seismic tremors that hit Jerusalem.

81-- A recent addition to the LWF Mount of Olives property is the Eastern Chapel, a pine-shaded amphitheater looking out over the Jordan Valley.

82-- Constructed with rocks unearthed during various construction projects on the campus, the sitting area and altar serve as a worship space and as a gathering spot for visiting groups.

83-- In the past few years, we have completed several sections of boundary wall protecting the 46 acres of land. Completing the boundary wall around the entire perimeter of the LWF property is a necessary first step to moving ahead with various projects.

84-- The LWF is in the process of developing plans for several major projects on the Mount of Olives related to youth empowerment, including a sports and community center in the area to the north of the current playfield, an educational and cultural facility at the south western corner of the property, and a promenade with sitting, meeting, camping, and viewing areas to the North of the hospital along the boundary wall on the LWF property line.

85-- The number one priority, however, is a housing project for Palestinian Christians in the southeast corner of the property.

86-- Progress has already begun on the project, building a retaining wall that will provide structure and support to the land and transplanting olive trees from the site to another location on the LWF property. The licensing process will begin soon, and building is hoped to commence by 2007 or early 2008.

87-- The 84 units to be built will provide much-needed housing for Palestinian Christians, a population that is disappearing from the fabric of Jerusalem, due in large part to the lack of affordable housing. The housing project site has a striking view across the Jordan Valley to the Dead Sea.

88-- The LWF is working in partnership with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Jordan and the Holy Land (ELCJHL) and the Kaiserin Auguste Victoria Foundation. Momentum is building for this important endeavor. We hope you will be in contact with us if you are interested in helping to provide Palestinian Christians with affordable housing and to maintain the Christian presence and witness in Jerusalem.

89-- The continuous presence of Jews, Christians, and Muslims in Jerusalem is of vital importance for historical reasons, as well as for reasons related to the future of Jerusalem as a city of peace and a model of understanding, tolerance and reconciliation.

90-- This project’s aims are:

To contribute to the overall presence of the three religions in Jerusalem -- Judaism, Christianity and Islam -- by strengthening the Christian minority communities in a spirit of ecumenical and inter-religious openness and by curbing the exodus of the Christian population from the city;

91-- To support the human rights of Palestinians by providing housing at reasonable prices, making it possible for them to remain in East Jerusalem; and

92-- To protect and preserve the LWF property on the Mount of Olives in order to continue to provide humanitarian services, serve the Palestinian people, and promote peace and understanding through a continued international and ecumenical presence.

[Thanks]

93-94-- On behalf of the LWF staff we would like to extend our thanks to all of our LWF colleagues in Geneva, supporting churches and individuals, related agencies and donors who encourage us and struggle with us to deliver humanitarian assistance to those who need it most. Your partnership is much appreciated as together we work to build hope and confidence so that the cycle of violence between Palestinians and Israelis is broken, that peace talks may continue, and that those who are willing to take risks for peace and reconciliation are strengthened.

Rev. Mark B. Brown
Regional Representative
The Lutheran World Federation
P.O. Box 19178
Jerusalem 91191

Tel. ++972-2-628-2289
Fax ++972-2-628-2628
Email Mark@LWFJerusalem.org