International Education Programme

Political Outreach

Started in May 2006, OneVoice Europe was set up to fundraise for the ongoing work of OneVoice Palestine and OneVoice Israel in the region. Very quickly, however, it became clear that there was a need for the organization to combat the increasingly extreme positions that pro-Israeli and pro-Palestinian communities were taking within Europe. OneVoice Europe’s mission is to help combat this polarization amongst the pro-Israeli and pro-Palestinian communities in Europe, through its Outreach and Education Program. The project has won plaudits from educators and students across the UK, helping young British students to better understand Israel and Palestine through direct interaction with people who live the conflict every day. It is a future-focused initiative, engaging its participants in forward-thinking dialogue about solutions, rather than backward-looking debate about historical narratives. Its potential to build bridges between communities, empower moderate students, and promote conflict resolution is powerful and unique, involving members of British, Palestinian, and Israeli society from many faiths and backgrounds.

Based in London, OneVoice Europe also utilizes the media and political context to further the organization’s agenda, and encourage all those concerned with the ongoing conflict to work together toward shared goals. Having regular communication with the UK government, and increasing our links within Brussels, we are well placed to make sure that the voices of Israeli and Palestinian grassroots are heard within the corridors of power across the continent.

Our office and programmes are expanding and we are hoping to reach more students, communities, journalists and opinion makers - both in the UK and mainland Europe - than ever before.

To get involved

Contact Sharon Alsoodani to set up an event in your community or to join a OneVoice Youth Leadership Program.
Contact John Lyndon to discuss partnerships and political or media collaboration
To intern or volunteer please contact Sharon Alsoodani

To Donate Contact: John Lyndon
Donate online at the Big Give

For Donations by Cheque:
Payable to OneVoice Europe
PO Box 817
Richmond
TW9 3WA

OneVoice Europe fundraises to support the work of OneVoice Israel and OneVoice Palestine. OneVoice Europe is a registered UK Charity, 1114114

International Education Programme

In Autumn 2008 OneVoice Europe toured around the UK visiting Glasgow, Leeds, Manchester, SOAS, LSE, Nottingham and Birmingham in a very successful tour that reached over 500 students. We brought over our Israeli youth leader Ana Lipnik and our Palestinian youth leader Abeer Natsheh to speak on some of the most divided campuses in the UK. For a full account of the program in 2008 please see our blog.

In Autumn 2009, we ran a second tour, reaching 10 universities – UCL, LSE, SOAS, King’s College, Southampton, Exeter, Birmingham, Surrey, Manchester and Glasgow. Our Youth Leaders for 2009 were Dina Jaber from Palestine and Beata Krants from Israel. Hundreds of students attended across the country and work is continued on these campuses in the form of student training and further discussion events.

In March 2010, we conducted a tour visiting Belfast, Edinburgh, Leeds, Dublin and Bradford with youth leaders Dekel Canetti from Israel and Rinal Sader from Palestine. Amidst rising levels of polarization and maximalist positioning, our youth leaders were uniquely placed to be able to approach these taboo topics with an unparalleled level of authenticity and a previously unheard voice of moderation and pragmatism; bringing a strong, nationalistic and patriotic perspective from both sides of the conflict.

In 2011, OneVoice Europe has launched a new Outreach and Education Programme that continues the work on university campuses in the form of conflict resolution training sessions and student support. An in-depth conflict resolution and leadership training session for up to 20 people is offered to community and university leaders, with the aim of empowering them to carry on such discussion activities and to continue promoting a transformation of attitudes within their own communities. Those who attend our training sessions benefit enormously. Many have said that their time at our events profoundly influences the decisions they go on to make and the relationships they go on to have in their personal, academic and professional lives.

The main focus for the new program, however, is a unique session for GCSE and A-level school pupils, that has been piloted and developed with the cooperation and input of religious community leaders and school teachers. Aimed at 15-18 year olds, the OVE schools program aims to enable a better understanding of conflict. In class sizes of around 30, students are encouraged to explore ideas of conflict resolution based on their own experiences, and then relate that to a wider, international context. They have the opportunity to meet young people from Israel and Palestine to learn about their experiences and their human and nationalistic interests, and then apply what they have learned to an exercise in developing solutions. Focus is put on the similarity of the shared needs and fears, and on seeing the interests behind the position as a first step towards reconciling the parties. Consequently, the young people’s approach towards the conflict is shifted from stereotypical support of a ‘side’, to seeing the humanity of both sides, and the urgent need for the conflict to be resolved. Ten schools have been visited and 600 school students have participated in the programme since its highly successful launch in May 2011. Feedback from teachers and students has been extremely positive, and bookings are already being taken for the new academic year.

Communities, too, have the opportunity to engage with OneVoice’s civil society activists to discuss the core issues that need to be resolved on the ground – mirroring the community meetings that OneVoice holds back in Palestine and Israel. Certain taboo issues at the heart of the conflict, such as settlements, refugees and Jerusalem, are selected as discussion topics that communities can debate with two ordinary representatives of Israeli and Palestinian civil society, who have a win-win rather than win-lose vision for an end of claims. A warning about the lose-lose outcome of maximalist positions on such issues runs through these discussions.

If you would like more information on our International Educational Program in Europe, please contact Sharon Alsoodani, our Director of Outreach and Education.

Political Outreach

As well as fundraising and spreading the moderate message to communities affected by the conflict, OneVoice Europe actively reaches out to the political community within Europe in order for the grassroots to be heard at the highest level of the international community. Our past work has included meetings with the Right Honorable David Miliband Foreign Secretary and liaising with former Prime Minister Tony Blair, the Quartets representative to the Middle East, creating meetings with our youth leaders in the region.

We put down an Early Day Motion (440) which called for the OneVoice principles to be used going forward to which we received over 100 signatures from all sides of the house, and organized a rally in Parliament square attended by over 300 members of the public and 30 parliamentarians.

We have been mentioned in debates in the Lords and the Commons, and Hilary Benn was invited by OneVoice Europe to visit with our Israeli and Palestinian teams, an experience he described as the ‘greatest cause for optimism’ he saw throughout his trip.

In 2010, we attended the Trade Union Congress, Labour and Conservative party conferences briefing parliamentarians on OneVoice’s ongoing work within the region and Europe. We worked with other civil society groups and NGO’s to find partners to lend their weight to the voices of moderation coming from both sides of the conflict. In 2011, Shadow Middle East Minister Stephen Twigg commended our work to the House of Commons, calling on the Foreign Secretary William Hague to join him in recognizing the movement and its achievements.

Outside of the UK we travelled to the European Parliament in Brussels raising the work of the movement to the centre of European policy. The European Union being a member of the Quartet has an important role to play to help bring peace to the region and the OneVoice movement is uniquely placed to allow the policy makers to hear what the real grassroots are saying. OneVoice has addressed a special session of the European Parliament, bringing the EU delegations to Israel and Palestine together to hear from young people working in their communities to end the conflict.

If you would like to find out more about the ongoing political work of OneVoice Europe please contact John Lyndon, our Executive Director.