EcoPeace / Friends of the Earth Middle East Receives Prestigious
Skoll Social Entrepreneurship Award
The Skoll Awards for Social Entrepreneurship are presented by the Skoll foundation to recognize the most innovative and sustainable approaches to resolving the world’s most urgent social issues.
EcoPeace / Friends of the Earth Middle East joins a prestigious global network of Skoll entrepreneurs who are working around the world on issues including tolerance and human rights, health, economic and social equity, peace and security, institutional responsibility, and environmental sustainability.
FoEME was recognized for our ability to “turn an area of conflict – water – into a platform for on-the-ground cooperation, to promote problem solving through people-to-people contact and for advancing regional development and creating necessary conditions for lasting peace”.They cited our Good Water Neighbors community project and program to rehabilitate the Lower Jordan River as leading examples of cross border initiatives that have fostered collaboration and increased awareness of common interests. The Award includes a significant financial contribution that will enable FoEME to further its important agenda. FoEME is extremely proud to join the Skoll family of awardees. Read our press release about the award for additional information.
FoEME marked World Water Day in several ways this year.We released a new report identifying best practices in domestic demand management from other drought-stricken countries of the world.The report also provides a comparison of Israeli policy with the identified best practices finding that despite its efforts, current Israeli policy is significantly lagging behind the world's best practices. Click on the links to read the full report and press coverage from the Jerusalem Post and Ha’aretz about its release.
On March 20, youth from all the participating Good Water Neighbor Palestinian communities met at the village of Auja, to learn about the importance of the Auja spring and the Jordan River. They shared their experiences and challenges of their own community work on water issues and then jointly embarked on a cleanup campaign, creating signs and slogans about water resources in the region.
On March 26 and 27, Baka el Gharbia's Eco-Farm hosted youth from the Israeli and Palestinian Good Water Neighbors communities for two days of water related activities. The youth learned about water saving gardening methods, water recycling, and various water collection methods, and participated together in the annual ‘Emek Hefer Walk’. Here, they launched a campaign calling for cooperation on conservation and protection of their joint water resources and distributed sand timers for 2 minute showers and other water saving tips.
For recent press and video coverage of the Good Water Neighbors project by Green Prophet, the Woodrow Wilson Institute’s New Security Beat, Change.org and the Current CBC Radio, please visit our project press coverage page.
The Good Water Neighbors Project is supported by USAID and the Swedish International Development Agency (SIDA).
Several important conferences were attended by FoEME staff during the month of March.FoEME’s 3 Directors, Munqeth Mehyar, Nader Khateeb and Gidon Bromberg were in Istanbul for the 5th annual World Water Forum - the world’s largest water-related event - attending lectures, sessions and meeting with international figures on the issue of transboundary waters, including with UN Special Advisor on Water to the President of the General Assembly, Maude Barlow, in an effort to further our regional projects.
Israeli Director Gidon Bromberg attended the ALLMEP Summit in WashingtonDC taking part in the launching of an initiative to establish a $200 million per-year International Fund for Israeli-Palestinian Peace, including increased funding for dialogue and grass roots projects.
Our “Pro Aquifer” project, (officially entitled “Protecting Trans-boundary Groundwater Sources from Pollution: Research, Training and Guidelines for Palestinian and IsraeliMunicipalities”), was awarded a National winner of theENERGY GLOBE Award for 2008.This highly prestigious award is presented to the best-implemented projects from around the world, with 769 projects submitted this year from 111 nations.
Earlier this year FoEME released theProAquifer Layman's report entitled“Protecting Transboundary Groundwater Source from Pollution: Research, Training and Guidelines for Israeli and PalestinianMunicipalities”.The report, issued in a single English, Arabic and Hebrew edition, provides an overview of the ProAquifer project as a model for empowering local authorities to act to prevent pollution of ground water resources. To learn more about the Pro-Aquifer project please click here.
The Pro-Aquifer project received financial support from the European Union’s LIFE Program and Green Cross France.
FoEME was asked by several European delegations this month to give them insights about the water situation on the ground in the region, and to learn about Friends of the Earth Middle East’s efforts to conserve and protect our shared environment and build bridges of peace.
A delegation of European Parliamentarians were hosted by our Bethlehem office, while a group of Parliamentarians from Germany and a delegation from the Dutch Ministry of Education, Culture and Science were given on-site tours of the environmental challenges facing the Dead Sea.
This new website was made possible by a grant generously donated to FoEME from the Apte Family Fund. Website | Donation | Comments
the identified best practices finding that despite its efforts, current Israeli policy is significantly lagging behind the world's best practices. 
collection methods, and participated together in the annual ‘Emek Hefer Walk’. 
event - 
Guidelines for Palestinian and 
the Pro-Aquifer project please click 
region, and to learn about Friends of the Earth Middle East’s efforts to conserve and protect our shared environment and build bridges of peace.
