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By ALLMEP and B8 of Hope
Produced by PENDULUM
After this year’s explosion of violence and dehumanization, we asked participants to reflect on what drives their activism; What makes them dedicate their lives to the pursuit of peace? And what sort of future are they working to build, together?
Click to explore stories by Israeli and Palestinian Peace Activists
The activists were mentored by international artists, writers, media professionals and human rights advocates
Saskia Keeley
Saskia Bory Keeley is a Swiss photographer, educated at Geneva University, Sotheby’s, and the New Academy for Art Studies in London. She trained at the International Center for Photography in New York City, and is a graduate of the Interspiritual Counseling Program (ISC), a 3-year training at the leading edge of the newly emergent field of Interspiritual Counseling (One Spirit Learning Alliance—NYC). She is currently enrolled in a Masters program in Transformational Leadership (Eastern Mennonite University – Center for Justice and Peacebuilding).
Saskia runs the Accompagnateur Workshops, photography workshops in which participants unpack decades of fear and bias through the simple yet profound acts of looking and listening. She is exploring where these workshops can be helpful in global conversations toward peace and coexistence (working with NGOs like Roots and Taghyeer in the West Bank) and within divided communities (collaborating with NGOs like Pico Union Project in Los Angeles, the Women’s Prison Association, and Youth Justice network in New York City). The Accompagnateur Workshops guide and teach participants to see members of different cultures and communities with clarity and compassion. Assigning each to photograph the other breaks barriers and provides the chance to literally see one another from a new perspective.
She is a Master Facilitator with Leaders’ Quest’s team, facilitating photo workshops to deepen relationships and broaden perspectives with business companies and their leadership teams.
Saskia has presented her work at universities including Yale, Duke, Tufts, UCLA, Washington University, and New York University’s Center for Global Affairs. She has been published in the Fletcher Forum of World Affairs, PBS Newshour, UCLA’s Daily Bruin, Women Across Frontiers.
“Beyond Sides – Toward Resolution” is a chapter she wrote for the academic publication “Intercultural and Interfaith Dialogues for Global Peacebullding and Stability” IGI Global Press, 2019.
Saskia runs the Accompagnateur Workshops, photography workshops in which participants unpack decades of fear and bias through the simple yet profound acts of looking and listening. She is exploring where these workshops can be helpful in global conversations toward peace and coexistence (working with NGOs like Roots and Taghyeer in the West Bank) and within divided communities (collaborating with NGOs like Pico Union Project in Los Angeles, the Women’s Prison Association, and Youth Justice network in New York City). The Accompagnateur Workshops guide and teach participants to see members of different cultures and communities with clarity and compassion. Assigning each to photograph the other breaks barriers and provides the chance to literally see one another from a new perspective.
She is a Master Facilitator with Leaders’ Quest’s team, facilitating photo workshops to deepen relationships and broaden perspectives with business companies and their leadership teams.
Saskia has presented her work at universities including Yale, Duke, Tufts, UCLA, Washington University, and New York University’s Center for Global Affairs. She has been published in the Fletcher Forum of World Affairs, PBS Newshour, UCLA’s Daily Bruin, Women Across Frontiers.
“Beyond Sides – Toward Resolution” is a chapter she wrote for the academic publication “Intercultural and Interfaith Dialogues for Global Peacebullding and Stability” IGI Global Press, 2019.
Noa Yammer
International Communications Director at Hand in Hand
Noa is an American-born educator, activist, musician, and storyteller who has been living in Israel/Palestine since 2003. Noa leads International Engagement and Communications at Hand in Hand, sharing the Hand in Hand story with thousands of supporters in Israel and around the world in visits, workshops, and online. Noa studied and taught Public Narrative, a storytelling and leadership practice, in the Harvard Kennedy School, and continues to coach and teach Public Narrative locally and around the world. Past experience in activism and education includes: serving as the Youth Program Director at Heartbeat, a music dialogue organization for Israeli and Palestinian youth, creating curriculum and leading pluralistic Jewish youth programs, teaching and facilitating Nonviolent Communication, and volunteering in the Rape Crisis Center in Jerusalem. Noa earned a BA in psychology and Jewish history and an MA in gender studies from Bar Ilan University. In her spare time, Noa studies Arabic and is a singer-songwriter in Jaffa.
Noa is an American-born educator, activist, musician, and storyteller who has been living in Israel/Palestine since 2003. Noa leads International Engagement and Communications at Hand in Hand, sharing the Hand in Hand story with thousands of supporters in Israel and around the world in visits, workshops, and online. Noa studied and taught Public Narrative, a storytelling and leadership practice, in the Harvard Kennedy School, and continues to coach and teach Public Narrative locally and around the world. Past experience in activism and education includes: serving as the Youth Program Director at Heartbeat, a music dialogue organization for Israeli and Palestinian youth, creating curriculum and leading pluralistic Jewish youth programs, teaching and facilitating Nonviolent Communication, and volunteering in the Rape Crisis Center in Jerusalem. Noa earned a BA in psychology and Jewish history and an MA in gender studies from Bar Ilan University. In her spare time, Noa studies Arabic and is a singer-songwriter in Jaffa.
Noa Ella Grandchamp
Noa Ella Grandchamp is a photographer based in Switzerland. She graduated in 2020 from the European Institute of Design in Milan with a Bachelor's in photography.
Passionated by photo reportage, Noa did her first long-term work in the West Bank where she followed Palestinian peace activists. This journey led to its own exhibition in 2019 in Geneva, Switzerland of which all proceeds were allocated to Taghyeer, a movement founded by Palestinians to promote non-violence throughout Palestine.
Noa has also worked with different brands such as: Ulysse Nardin, Hodinkee, Kattard.
Passionated by photo reportage, Noa did her first long-term work in the West Bank where she followed Palestinian peace activists. This journey led to its own exhibition in 2019 in Geneva, Switzerland of which all proceeds were allocated to Taghyeer, a movement founded by Palestinians to promote non-violence throughout Palestine.
Noa has also worked with different brands such as: Ulysse Nardin, Hodinkee, Kattard.
Laura Wohlwend
Laura Wohlwend is a Swiss theatre maker, actor and director. She trained at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama- BA Acting (Collaborative and Devised Theatre) in London. After her studies, she worked alongside actors and directors from the National Theatre, Royal Court, Young Vic and others. Her work is often movement-led and takes a multidisciplinary and multicultural approach which stretches the form of storytelling. Laura is passionate about autobiographical devising and is interested in collaborating with artists whose voices are not heard - especially those in the Middle East. She recently created an award-nominated, semi-cinematographic livestream play which explored some of the nuance and complexity around the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Alongside her artistic work, Laura is also a psychosocial workshop facilitator for young refugees and asylum seekers as well as a teacher of creative Jewish studies.
Alongside her artistic work, Laura is also a psychosocial workshop facilitator for young refugees and asylum seekers as well as a teacher of creative Jewish studies.
Itamar Wigoder
Itamar Wigoder is the National Program Director at the New Israel Fund, where he produces and manages the organization’s events and programs in-person and online. He has a varied professional background, which includes, the United Nations, the NYC Mayor’s Office, and award-winning restaurants. A Tel-Aviv native, and current Brooklyn resident, Itamar is a long-time human rights and peace activist. He holds a BA from Tel Aviv University and an MPA from New York University.
Petar Mitrovic
Petar has been studying and practicing photography for 15 years.
His main and favorite subjects are "Portraits", based on his love for people and humankind in all the diversity on this little earth.
Petar likes to go to places where no one goes. Find and show beauty where no one else sees it.
His two main works - One Word and his North Korea reportage - were celebrated in Switzerland, and awarded Petar with the title of "Personality of the Year 2020 of the "Swiss French Part"
Petar is a native Yugoslavian, a country which doesn't exist anymore. This part of his story is what drives him his my daily photo work
His main and favorite subjects are "Portraits", based on his love for people and humankind in all the diversity on this little earth.
Petar likes to go to places where no one goes. Find and show beauty where no one else sees it.
His two main works - One Word and his North Korea reportage - were celebrated in Switzerland, and awarded Petar with the title of "Personality of the Year 2020 of the "Swiss French Part"
Petar is a native Yugoslavian, a country which doesn't exist anymore. This part of his story is what drives him his my daily photo work
A committee of specialists picked three winning projects to receive a prize
Gaby Goldman
is an experienced media professional. As a journalist based in Israel/ Palestine, she covered major international news events and the many aspects of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. After serving as special assistant to Quarter Representative Tony Blair, Gaby took the role of director of communications for Hand in Hand, an NGO that fosters coexistence between Jews and Arabs through bilingual school and communities. In that role, she initiated and led a nationwide storytelling program for activists and school educational staff. Gaby is certified as a therapist through creative arts and facilitator of social meditations.
Isabelle Gattiker
Born in 1978, Isabelle Gattiker is the co-founder, General and Programme director of the International Film Festival and Forum on Human Rights (FIFDH) in Geneva, the leading international event for cinema and human rights. Since 2003, the Festival takes place in the heart of Geneva, parallel to the annual main session of the UN Human Rights Council in March. During 10 days, the FIFDH provides screenings and high-level debates in which human rights violations are denounced and debated robustly, with guests including Barbara Hendricks, Angela Davis, Ai Weiwei and Edward Snowden. Between 2005 and 2013, she produced audacious films for cinema and TV, all of which won international acclaim, and coordinated the Master in Film at the ECAL and HEAD-Geneva.
Nico Daswani
Nico Daswani is an arts director, cultural leader and two-time Emmy-Award winning executive producer with a 20-year track record of creating inclusive change. He has collaborated with some of the world's most inspiring and influential artists and cultural institutions to develop and produce award-winning films, concerts, tours, festivals, exhibitions, artistic residencies, fellowships and forums to advance cross-cultural dialogue, inclusion and respect for the planet. He is the author of the forthcoming children's novel, "Markine et la Porte Secrète" (Sept. 2021).
Isabelle Muller
Isabelle Muller, with a degree in Art History from the University of Geneva, mother of 3 children, Swiss, is the director of the Centre des arts at the International School of Geneva.
Passionate about art and music, she has always wanted to combine her professional life with her personal values, bringing art as the main vector and messenger of each of her missions. Whether during the 6 years at the European Foundation FEDRE, or as an event coordinator and producer for the New Year's Eve of the City of Geneva, its human, environmental and social values have always been demonstrated through art and music as a universal language.
Isabelle uses the same vectors to give the young generation the tools allowing them to access a better world and to have a positive impact for an urgent environmental transition. It is also for this purpose that she writes and illustrates tales for children under the nickname "Heidi Lili" and co-directs the association "Un Monde Meilleur" with Valérie Martinez, in order to give children a better understanding of the 17 SDGs, allowing them to know how to act locally, daily and sustainably for a better world.
Passionate about art and music, she has always wanted to combine her professional life with her personal values, bringing art as the main vector and messenger of each of her missions. Whether during the 6 years at the European Foundation FEDRE, or as an event coordinator and producer for the New Year's Eve of the City of Geneva, its human, environmental and social values have always been demonstrated through art and music as a universal language.
Isabelle uses the same vectors to give the young generation the tools allowing them to access a better world and to have a positive impact for an urgent environmental transition. It is also for this purpose that she writes and illustrates tales for children under the nickname "Heidi Lili" and co-directs the association "Un Monde Meilleur" with Valérie Martinez, in order to give children a better understanding of the 17 SDGs, allowing them to know how to act locally, daily and sustainably for a better world.
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