Community Mobilization in Crisis
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Dalia Association- You can check out the broadcasting of the discussion on developing open educational resources on community mobilization with Dalia Association- in Bethlehem, Palestine

"We have allowed shallow objectives of change, seen through narrow ideas of what this might look like, to permeate how we think of need, of resilience, of how people earn an income, of how people come together and care for each other, of binary concepts of gender and diversity, of tokenistic inclusion sentiments. We say ‘leave no-one behind’ as if it’s an accidental and surprising after-effect of crisis and disasters, rather than a deep seated, historical unseating that has colonial roots. We take a charity lens to aid and development, rather than of justice and equity and work to improve ‘aid’ rather than address global tax injustice. " How can we change practices of international solidarity and support at this moment of tremendous change? https://www.globaldashboard.org//a-world-in-which-many-wo/

Many countries right now are crafting #coronavirus response plans that exclude non-citizens, in ways that can both hurt public health for all, and disproportionately hurt marginalized communities. The Anti-Racism Movement in Lebanon has put together a call for including non-Lebanese, including migrant workers and refugees, in responses from the government, employers, and civil society. We particularly are glad to see them call for international donor flexibility: We call on... funders of local and international organisations operating in Lebanon to: *Provide flexible funding and allow partner organisations to utilize funds in ways they feel are best for their organisations and communities; *Allow the suspension of activities that do not respond to the many crises and emergencies that Lebanon is currently going through; *Be in conversation with partner organisations around the best ways forward in these difficult times. https://www.armlebanon.org//including-non-lebanese-your-co’s-necessity?fbclid=IwAR0FyfnSObzcZto7aZJ8AqAtMBLNajtCP_u7YoBpM8SxnR6YdjUGFdE6Q30

While Lebanon is on lockdown to respond to the #coronavirus, the 1.5 million refugees throughout the country are on lockdown with them. This article from Al-Monitor highlights the challenging conditions for refugees and the work that governments, parties, and other formal actors are taking. (It doesn't tell us the story of refugee and host communities mobilizing themselves to provide mutual support--we'll post about those as we find them!) https://www.al-monitor.com//lebanon-syrian-palestinian-ref

While all of us are thinking about #covid19 and how to respond to this particular crisis, other crises are still ongoing, including the needs of the over 30 million refugees worldwide. Techfugees is maintaining a crowdsourced document highlighting how COVID-19 is affecting refugee communities and refugee mobility worldwide, in addition to collecting ways to help. Check in out! https://docs.google.com//1SlaoJl0SSZPDHlkhyPHRWFjX3G/edit

How are your communities mobilizing during the #covid19 pandemic? In this video, Dr. Shabana Mir of American Islamic University, a friend of CMIC, interviews Wardah Noor of Future Pakistan about their work agains hunger in the city of Layyah. Do you know about a community initiative to share? Send it to us, and we will post about it! (Video is in Urdu; turn on captions for English subtitles.)

Our Co-Director Emily with our friends at Dalia Association in Palestine