We held our 4th annual Virtual Conference this month! The theme for this year was Centering Palestinian Narratives, People, and Visions. In addition to welcoming remarks by Nadya Tannous, we unpacked the ground-breaking film, Farha, with Nadia Elia on our first day with 45 attendees.
On day 2, we were joined by 68 attendees and heard from none other than Ahed Tamimi, who shared her experience as a Palestinian youth activist and political prisoner. We then continued highlighting the work done on the ground by listening to a panel of students involved in Birzeit University’s Right to Education Campaign.
On our last day, 55 attendees joined us as Omar Barghouti shared the power and significance that BDS can have as a tool for solidarity building and resistance. We ended the conference listening to residents of Sheikh Jarrah, Suma Al-Qawasmi and Reem Hammad, and Muna AlKurd to share some conversations taking place on the ground as we speak and specifically sharing their experiences during the Unity Intifada.
“I absolutely loved this 3-day Conference! It was such an honor to hear the beautiful Palestinian voices and hero’s live in front of my eyes! I will never forget this once in a lifetime experience. I definitely recommend others to sign up for next year’s conference.” - Anonymous
“I’m so thankful, I took this course! Freedom is the Future gives you a beautifully detailed glimpse of the true side of Falastin, that you won’t forget! This course is great for those who strive to advocate for a Free and Liberated Palestine. If you are interested in learning about Palestine’s history, culture, occupation, and much more, signing up for FIF won’t disappoint you!” - Anonymous
“This course was an amazing way to learn about Palestine as well as intersectionality within the movement. I was able to take a lot of the things I learned outside of this course and into my own personal life as well as on campus to educate people on the Palestinian Liberation and struggle.” - Anonymous
We concluded our Winter programs this month and are so proud of all the students who participated in our programs this session. To celebrate the hard work of all of our students, we hosted a pizza party on the last day of our Arabic program and also handed out goody bags and kuffiyahs to our dabka, cooking, soccer, basketball, and tutoring students. We’d like to extend a special thank you to not only our program parents and students, but also our wonderful program staff who work hard to make sure our programs are running smoothly and constantly improving.
We want to give a shoutout to our Girls Advanced Dabka group, who performed at a Mom & Daughter cultural event at the Academy of Greatness and Excellence and did a wonderful job! Great job to our advanced girls and to their amazing instructor, Eman.
Registration for our Spring 2023 session is now open on our website. We will begin after Ramadan on Monday, April 24 for anyone interested in registering. We look forward to seeing you in the Spring!
We are grateful for the students who spent the last 10 weeks learning about Palestinian history, culture, struggle, and how to situate Palestine in larger social justice contexts. We are hopeful that these courses are not the end of their journey to work towards a free Palestine, but just the beginning! Please find some of the testimonials from both of our classes, Freedom is the Future, and HOPE.
We graduated our third cohort of our Advocacy and Community Engagement team when we met for the last time this month as we wrapped up our 6-month program! All participants received a certificate of completion for their dedication in learning about social justice, personal and professional development, and activism and community organizing.
This month, we hosted another Self Care and Empowerment Workshop for new mothers. This time Aya Mustafa focused on Children’s nutrition, Dr. Naglaa Rizk (GYN) shared about mother’s physical health postpartum, Islam Mosleh showed how to get back into shape and Marseel Kamel discussed various doula services.
Hosting a workshop gives new mothers in our area the opportunity to connect with one another while learning something new about women’s health, childcare, and motherhood. We look forward to hosting more workshops like this in the future! There were 11 people who attended this workshop in person and 1 person who attended it online.
Our Book Club met to discuss Susan Abulhawa’s novel Mornings in Jenin. We had 3 people attend in person and 1 person on zoom. We are working on creating a collaborative space where ideas and thoughts can be shared and built upon.
This month was all about healthy eating and women’s fitness. We had two amazing speakers from Ohio, Lamees Lahham and Salma Alsibai, give a wonderful presentation about their new program, that focuses on nutritional tips about eating healthy during Ramadan! We also had a great fitness session with personal trainer Eslam Mosleh! We had a total of 15 women in attendance.
Our Young Adults Iftar this year was a night to remember! This year we worked with Islamic Relief to raise $16,000 for Palestine. We kicked off the evening with icebreakers and introductions. We broke our fasts with dates and delicious food. For the remainder of the night we engaged in various activities such as calligraphy making, family feud, taking pictures using our backdrop and dipping fruit and marshmallows in a chocolate fountain brought over by Chocolate House. With a turnout of around 70, PACC hall was buzzing with laughter and excitement from our guests!
In order to honor the broader resilience, courage, and strength of Palestinian women, PACC shared the stories and achievements of Palestinian women in our local community throughout the month of March on Facebook and Instagram. The women we highlighted were Dr. Suha Siam, Sanat Karkat, Ramia Hout, Sumaya Amro, Jenan Matari, Abire Sabbagh, Amineh Abbassi, Aseel Zeinati, Hilalah Kanan, and Hanady Halawani. We also asked our social media followers how Palestinian women inspire them everyday and received many heartwarming responses! The love our community has for Palestinian women was evident as they described them as being resilient, hardworking and incredibly strong!
International Women’s Day, originally referred to as International Working Women’s Day, is celebrated across the world annually on March 8. Women have been at the heart of the Palestinian liberation struggle throughout our history. They have served the cause of Palestine in so many unique ways, resisting the occupation of their land and their minds with their art, writing, knowledge, political struggles, labor, and love. We hope the stories we shared throughout the month will fill you with pride and inspire you.
At PACC, we do our very best to help out our community as much as we can and one of the ways that we do that is hosting a clothing and home necessities drive for the families in need. We had an amazing turnout with the mutual aid drive this month with over 100 families benefiting from the drive. Thank you to everyone who donated and volunteered their time for this initiative!
In collaboration with ICNA Relief USA, PACC was able to serve as a distribution center for families in our community that are in need of essential items ahead of Ramadan. We were able to distribute 200 bags with food items for these families.
We partnered once again with the American Red Cross to host another blood drive and were able to collect a total of 25 pints of blood, 3 power red donations from the surrounding community and saved a total of 75 lives! Thank you so much to everyone who showed up and donated.
As various Students for Justice in Palestine chapters across the nation organized their local Israeli Apartheid Weeks, PACC supported two of our local SJP chapters, Rutgers New Brunswick and William Paterson, by hosting Tatreez workshops on each campus and speaking on a panel at Rutgers that highlighted the role of women in the Palestinian liberation movement.
In honor of women’s history month, PACC hosted and co-sponsored Owning the Table, with Cair-NJ, Bawdi, and Uproar! This event was an all-women’s safe space to share lived experiences as Muslim women with each other. There were 26 women in attendance.
This month we pushed our MENA campaign through outreach to mosques, schools, colleges and events. We asked people to submit a comment urging the government to include a MENA (Middle Eastern/North African) category in all government documents so that our communities start receiving support and benefits such as more college scholarships. Our goal is to reach 10,000 comments by mid-April and we are almost there! Take 60 seconds and submit your comment here!
Our team made their way to Trenton this month to attend the hearing and testify for the Language Access Bill. If passed, the bill would interpret and translate services in 15 languages. It was successfully voted to move forward!
PACC joined CAIR-NJ and several organizations in the State House Annex in Trenton to urge the NJ State Assembly to pass the Muslim Heritage Month Resolution. It was a pivotal moment for all Muslims in NJ when every assembly member voted in favor of designating January of each year Muslim Heritage Month!
