In order to strengthen Pilgrims of Ibillin’s outreach while continuing our primary support relationship with the Mar Elias Educational Institutions, the Board of Directors nurtures partner relationships with other peace-building programs in Israel/Palestine.
Since 2008, annual grants of have been given to Peace-building Partner organizations beyond the Mar Elias Schools in Ibillin.
The following priorities guide our annual choice of Partners:
To support any of those programs with a secure online gift, click here. Be sure to designate which programs your gift supports.
“We have found that conflict resolution is the art of working and sharing ourselves, our resources, our minds, and hearts with others.” — Zoughbi Zoughbi, Wi’am founder and director
Located in the shadow of the Separation Wall that surrounds Bethlehem, Wi’am stands as a symbol of hope for children, youth, women, and families living in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.
Wi’am is a grassroots organization, founded in Bethlehem in 1994. Since its inception, Wi’am has been a place for conflict transformation, restorative justice and mediation. This mediation focuses on the Arab traditions of reconciliation, called Sulha, coupled with different schools of thought from around the world.
Wi’am is also a community center for peace building, sustainable development, empowerment and hope. Both regionally and on an international level, Wi’am creates and strengthens a culture of acceptance and understanding. Wi’am tries to be a center of hope to a people living under occupation and a world that is brimming with the cries of injustice and oppression.
“We are like an olive tree, with its roots deeply rooted in the ground with branches that reach out to the world. Our words produce more than sound; they walk tall to the four corners of the earth. For some, the day to day activities are only part of the job, but the larger picture shows a commitment to serve and enrich community relationships and to be an integral part of fostering positive changes for our future.” — Zoughbi Zoughbi
Pilgrims of Ibillin works with Wi’am to plan our Living Stones pilgrimages, with Wi’am staff handling all Holy Land accommodations and scheduling for us.
For more information, visit Wi’am’s website and Facebook page.
Pilgrims of Ibillin annual program grant supports the girls’ soccer program by paying fees for trainers who work with the program’s coaches every summer. Such support contributes to the core of DAK’s mission of empowering Palestinian young women leadership.
Recent grants support DAK Society’s effort to address cultural barriers and stereotypes surrounding women’s participation in soccer while fostering social acceptance through soccer capacity building, awareness campaigns, and community engagement.
Achievements they’ve enjoyed with this program are building athletic skills, shifting cultural perceptions around girls and sports, empowering female soccer players to give presentations at area schools, boosting their leadership and self-confidence, and building a support community.
Not only are the girls enjoying an array of developmental benefits, but they also have enjoyed experiencing success: the DAK girls soccer team has won repeated national titles under the adept guidance of Coach Farah Zakharia.
Donate to Support Diyar Girls’ Soccer
Hope School is a Christian charity school for orphans and needy children that is located near Bethlehem – the birthplace of our Lord Jesus Christ. The school provides education for both boys and girls kindergarten through 12th grade; the school provides for the spiritual, academic and physical growth of every child we serve.
The school has a boarding section for orphan boys or from challenging family situations. At our school the boys can sleep, eat, play, and study in a safe comfortable surrounding. The school provides clothing, study material and three healthy meals each day for up to 20 boys in grades 7 to 12 who come from all over the Holy Land.
The team of highly qualified staff create a family atmosphere where boys make friends easily, feel comfortable and relaxed and can establish good study routines. Hope school boarding section is making a great difference in the lives of those youngsters.
Recently Hope School launched special classes dedicated to helping students with learning disabilities to receive proper education. Many of these students have come to Hope School as a result of being unable to fit in at any of the other schools in the Bethlehem area; Hope school is the only place of education that provides the resources for children with special needs to complete secondary school.
Despite the difficult backgrounds of some of our students, many of them pass the standardized government exams with very high grades. Classes have graduated every year despite regional unrest.
Most families whose children attend Hope School cannot afford school fees or supply even the most basic of school equipment for their children. But, unlike many private schools in the Holy Land, Hope school never turns away a needy child on financial grounds. Hope School welcomes them, provides food at low cost to children who would otherwise go hungry, and offers a home for children who have been orphaned or who have no stable family environment.
However, the cost of this policy of caring for the most vulnerable children is very great. Because the school receives no government grants and very little is paid in school fees, Hope School relies for its income on gifts and donations from organizations and individual supporters around the world.
Your prayers are very much needed for Hope School and for the vulnerable children who are looking ahead for an auspicious future.
Watch a short film that Hope School Students made to educate their peers about issues of bullying.
Since 2014, Pilgrims of Ibillin has been a sponsor of the Maia Water Project, supporting Middle East Children’s Alliance’s (MECA) work for Children in the Middle East. You can support it by designating the Gaza Water Project for your online gift.
As of October 2023 Gaza has been subject to a massacre on a scale not witnessed previously.
Israel has been killing, injuring, and displacing people in Gaza almost continuously since October 2023. It cut off electricity, food, water, and other basic necessities. Homes, schools, mosques, clinics and hospitals are destroyed. Children, journalists, and medical workers have been killed and gravely injured.
Every day, MECA’s remarkable and courageous team on the ground respo
nd to the urgent needs of children and families under attack.
MECA’s work in Gaza shifted and expanded significantly during the brief ceasefire in January and February 2025, when Israel allowed significantly more aid, particularly desperately needed food, to enter Gaza and our staff and partners were able to operate without the danger and restrictions of regular bombings, checkpoints, and displacement. You can find a summary of those efforts on this page.
On March 2, 2025 Israel stopped all aid from entering Gaza and on March 18, Israel unilaterally broke the ceasefire with multiple airstrikes that continue daily, along with a brutal blockade of food, water, medicine, electricity, and other necessities. Despite this deprivation, MECA’s team in Gaza continues to find ways to meet the needs of as many people as possible.
Even while aid can no longer get through the inhumane blockade, MECA offers help in different ways:
For more information, check out the MECA page regarding the emergency aid they are providing: Click here.
Seraj Libraries’ mission is to assist in the education of Palestinian villagers of all ages and faiths through the development of high quality and accessible library programs. The project is based on the belief that civic education is the best route to democracy, human rights and peace.
LibrariesSeraj’s Community Libraries are beacons of resilience in the face of adversity, offering more than books—they provide refuge and connection. Their 13 libraries, located in refugee camps, Area C, and rural villages, serve as the heartbeats of their communities, offering vital resources in places where access to education and safe gathering spaces is limited.
In a landscape where educational opportunities are often restricted, these libraries defy the forces that seek to limit Palestinian voices. They offer places where residents can gather freely, explore their heritage, and nurture their aspirations.
Housed in Seraj’s library in the historic heart of Birzeit, the Cultural Arts Program embodies creativity
as a powerful form of resistance. Located in a 200-year-old courtyard with six rooms—including spaces for children’s and adults’ libraries, an activity room, technology room, cafeteria, game room, and stage—this center provides a haven for self-expression and connection. In a world where creative voices are often silenced, Seraj’s program empowers Palestinians to process trauma, reclaim their stories, and strengthen their communities. Here, art, music, and theater become acts of defiance, tools to resist erasure and celebrate resilience.
The Seraj Library and Storytelling Center in Kufor Aqab is a community space dedicated to developing the art of storytelling in Palestine. The Center provides space and resources for people to read, learn, create, celebrate, and gather, including a children’s library, a workshop space, and an open kitchen.
The Center is the home of the Seraj Storytelling Academy, a 3-year course through which students learn to collect, curate, and perform the stories that guide the Center’s programming.
In collecting our stories, we know ourselves and one another more deeply.
In curating our stories, we heal, root, and design.
In performing our stories, we share, build, and connect.
Seraj newsletters are on their website: www.serajlibraries.org.
Donate to Support the Seraj Library Project
Fr. Firas Khoury Diab, the priest at St. George’s Melkite Catholic Church in Zababdeh, sees his church as a catalyst for change and growth in this upper West Bank village. Caring for the spiritual needs of the Melkites and their neighbors in Zababdeh is a top priority. But Abuna Firas believes his work beyond leading the prayers and liturgies is also a high calling.
Abuna Firas works with local people to keep family-supporting jobs in this area, despite the limits on commerce resulting from checkpoints and travel/trade limitations. Pilgrims of Ibillin’s first Peace gift to Zababdeh was for the purchase of new industrial sewing machines, followed by an embroidery machine. Subsequent gifts have provided a scroll saw for olive wood craftmaking, gave seed-money for materials to a women’s hand-embroidery collective, and helped build an addition onto the church — now used to house the after-school tutoring program which serves local children and youth.
We count on special donations from friends of Fr. Firas and Zababdeh to make these gifts possible.
These funds are going for 2 purposes: Part of our gift will provide for an after-school tutoring and enrichment program for local children to strengthen their math, reading, and language skills and to provide extra activities in music, dance, and drama. A second and larger part of our gift will provide scholarships for local students from 2nd grade through high school as they attend the excellent private Catholic school in Zababdeh.
Soap Project Description
Finally, members of the Zababdeh Church make pure olive oil soap using traditional methods, and most of this soap will be sent to American (or other international) friends who offer the soap for sale during Alternative Christmas markets and sales. The profits of the soap sales pay fair trade wages to the olive farmers, the soap maker and packager, and even the taxi driver who delivers the soap to be shipped abroad. Part of the profits also help provide the kindergarten program for local low-income children.
For a PDF describing the program , click here.