A song for Palestine From the river to the sea Lord, someone hear our plea Sometimes it feels like we will drown The tides keep pulling us down We are awash in a flood of pain That keeps falling down like rain Is there no ship, to sail away Towards the dawn of a new day? From the river to the sea One day we will be free We will walk hand in hand Return to our motherland From the river to the sea Wallah, this land is holy When we’re made whole as one A new day will have begun For this river is made of tears shed over 76 years Flowing into a dead sea Can we stay afloat in this misery? Oh water, wash over these lands And wipe the bloodstains of our hands We’ll sleep peacefully in the lion’s den The olive tree will grow again From the river to the sea We still hold the key To break free from these chains We will rise again From the river to the sea Lord have mercy on me When love will reign There’ll be an end to all our pain From the river to the sea Wallah, listen to me Together let us
In the first part of the essay, we sketched the economical and political historic background of the current aid system. In the second part, we looked at things in the current NGO-based aid system that are not quite optimal. In the final part, I will start addressing solutions, based on my own experience. What does impactful, effective NGO work look like? We should focus on a paradigm of collaborative, community-based aid, rather than aid delivery. How to create good conditions for people? An impactful paradigm is grassroots and not top-down. Local people should be co-creators, who, with the support of aid agencies, move towards becoming more independent and self-sustaining. Aid oughtn't be ‘pushed’ on local people. The Listening Project talks about a ‘collaborative aid system’.(1) You could also call it a community-based approach, where you strengthen local communities by building strong ties with them and giving them the support that really need. You achieve this by taking your