If you like anything we are doing, please donate at paccusa.org/donate Every dollar helps keep us going!
PROGRAMS
PACC Summer Fun
PACC Summer Fun was in full swing this month! We started and ended our 3-week session then kicked off our second 3-week session. It was a month full of empowerment, education and adventure! From bubble parties in our PACC-yard to a trip to the Bronx Zoo, everyday was filled with a new activity and learning opportunity! Our program also had a heavy focus on Palestine Education, advocacy and empowerment. With our Holding On to Palestinian Existence (HOPE) Course our students learned crucial components of Palestinian history, culture, resistance and so much more. We even incorporated a children’s press conference so our kids felt that they could also contribute to the July 24th mobilization to arrest Netanyahu! Check out more of what we did on facebook!
Ali Institute Leadership Program
PACC partnered with Ali Institute to form a cohort of 10 emerging leaders for an 8-week leadership course. We had several speakers join and share their experiences in the media, unions, and organizing speeches to our future leaders. The students have been showing excitement and growth in their public speaking skills. Building confidence and passion in being participants of the emerging world.
Palestine Summer Reading Challenge
This summer, we want our community to take advantage of those long hot days and get to reading! One of the many ways to empower communities is through reading to broaden our understanding of the world whether through fiction or nonfiction. We curated a summer reading list of our favorite picks featuring Palestinian and BIPOC authors along with a reading log for participants to keep track of their reading. We had 30 people join our challenge! Once the log is completed, our readers get to win prizes from us! We also want to encourage reading from our list all year round to encourage education on the Palestinian struggle along with our intertwined struggles with other BIPOC communities.
EVENTS
PACC X PYM Book Club Part 3
17 book club attendees enjoyed discussing the PYM project “The Trinity of Fundamentals” that they asked for a third session! Emphasizing the importance of education to the struggle, the book club has been using this text to discuss the role of each person in the Palestinian struggle.
Blood Drive
This month we hosted a blood drive with the Red Cross! We had 28 generous people dropping by all day to donate their blood, including those with rare blood types! In total, 29 pints of blood was collected. Thank you to our community for saving lives, one blood donation at a time!
ADVOCACY & OUTREACH
July 24th DC Protest
We organized a bus of over 50 people to protest the war criminal Netanyahu’s address to Congress. Our group joined people from over 27 cities up and down the east coast heading to D.C. See pictures of our community members here
Children’s Press Conference for Gaza
Basma, our Palestine Education Director, organized a press conference for our children to speak on the day of the protest. We had 22 of our PACC Summer Fun participants share speeches, chants, poems in support of our brothers and sisters in Gaza.
We submitted an Op-Ed to TRT World about our experience going to the protest. We also participated in a video with AJ+ highlighting student involvement. We made sure to center Palestinian voices in this very painful historic moment.
USCPR Convening Grassroot Organizing Team
Haliema, our Civic Engagement and Advocacy manager, and Barry, our Youth Leader and new USCPR fellow flew to Minnesota to join a beautiful coalition of over 100 organizers from all over with different backgrounds linking our work to one another for a Free Palestine. They learned about the importance of building community and finding ways to care for each other’s needs. They discussed ways to organize around municipal and campus divestment by pinpointing companies and institutions that are contributing to this war on Gaza.
As a team we have been calling into Scutari’s district to gather support against IHRA. To stop it from going to a vote in the State Senate. We have also been working to identify where our members are so we can better serve our community by finding out where the crux of our people power is to be better organized around building relationships with representatives.
NJAIJ Street Fighter Award
PACC was honored to be a recipient of New Jersey Alliance for Immigrant Justice’s Street Fighter Award! This award was given to PACC for being a model for rapid response and community care and having contextualized global issues to the local and regional levels.
NJAIJ is one of our amazing community partners who have shown unwavering solidarity for Palestine along with being a part of crucial advocacy efforts that have introduced legislation including Language Access Bill, Muslim Heritage Month, and so much more.
Meeting with Assemblymen
We were part of a larger coalition meeting with Assemblyman Gordon Johnson who agreed to oppose the IHRA definition of Anti-Semitisim. We also met with Assemblyman Julio Marenco to introduce him to the work that we do at PACC. We spoke about ways to build allyship between our communities. We shared the need for our own protection, ways to engage in collective activism and the intersectionality between the causes we care about.
IHRA Definition
We worked with a diverse group of organizations and individuals who testified in opposition of IHRA to come up with a new definition of Anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, and Anti-Palestinian Racism that does not use the controversial IHRA definition which is a direct attack on our freedom of Speech.
PBS’s Palestinian in America Special MARKETING
Earlier this year, we worked with PBS NJ to film a special about Palestinans in NJ that featured our Dabka program students and an interview with our Executive Director, Rania Mustafa and our board member, Raed Odeh. Watch the special here!
Handala Publication
On July 13, 1969, Naji Al-Ali published the most iconic symbols representing Palestinian resistance: Handala. In a short video, our Palestine Education Director, Basma Bsharat goes into depth behind the meaning of Handala and why its story resonates with so many Palestinians. Take a look here
Malnutrition in Gaza
Please swipe on our collaboration post with Registered Dietitian, Aya Mustafa, that breaks down the staggering decline in children’s health in Gaza due mass starvation. The post offers statistics showing that the situation for children in Gaza is getting worse by each passing day. Read the post here.
Traditional Palestinian Dress Day
This month marked Traditional Palestinian Dress Day so we shared an informational video that highlighted Tatreez narrated by Alaa Suleiman, the daughter of our renowned Tatreez teacher Wafa Ayyad. Check it out here and follow us on instagram for more content like this.
Civic Engagement Update
Help us stop the IHRA Definition from being passed on the state senate level! The bill has passed on the committee level and serves to hinder our freedom of speech when it comes to criticizing Israel in NJ. If you live in Senator Scutari’s district, we ask that you give his office a call to demand that the IHRA Definition be dismissed in NJ. Call (732) 827-7480 today!
Check out highlights of everything we did in PACC Summer Fun for the first session of the program! Watch our reel here.
