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GAZA YOUTH TOUR | June 10 - July 30, 2010 As you know, the Gaza Freedom March has worked hard to get peace activists from around the world into Gaza. It is equally important that Palestinians get out of Gaza to speak to Americans and others in their own voices. To that end, we are cooperating with the Fellowship of Reconciliation, Our Journey to Smile, and Contagious Love Experiment to try to bring five brilliant Gazan youth to the United States for a speaking tour from June 10 - July 30. GFMer Pam Bailey (Rasmussen), who got into Gaza, after a month of persistence following the Freedom March in Cairo, has identified the youth and will accompany them to the US. Tentative stops on the tour include the following cities: Asheville, Raleigh, Washington DC, Philadelphia, New York, Buffalo, Cleveland, Detroit (US Social Forum), Chicago, Omaha, Denver, Salt Lake, Boise, and Olympia. We need your help! - Ask your representative and senators to support the US visa applications for three of the five youths:
- Call your representative and senators. Ask them to contact Ambassador XX and urge for a timely approval of visas for Majed, Sulaiman, and Mohammed coming from Gaza. Find your representatives here.
- Send your reps an email: Follow up your call with an email repeating your request to contact the US Ambassador XX in Jerusalem. Keep following up until you get a response. A sample email can be found here.
- Sign the petition: Show public support for the tour. We will deliver your signatures both to the US Consulate in Jerusalem and the Israeli authorities, who control all travel in and out of Gaza.
- Contributions are needed to help pay for their airfare, accommodations, logistics, outreach, etc.
- Cultivate discussions, suggestions, support and RSVPs by participating in the Facebook event.
 Majed Abusalama is only 22 years old, but he is already a leader among peaceful Gazan youth. A third-year IT graduate at Palestine University in Gaza City, Majed's "official" projects have included serving as Gaza Project Coordinator for Italy's "Music for Peace" and L'Arte della Felicita (children's art exchange) initiatives, psychosocial counselor for Gaza's Sharek Youth Forum, translator for Sweden's Gutenberg University and Gaza program assistant for Jumpstart International. He also regularly covers events on the ground through words and pictures for publications such as the Dagens Nyheter newspaper (Sweden), Babelmed magazine (France) and Manifesto newspaper (Italy). In July, he will begin a prestigious, eight-month journalism fellowship offered by the Herbert Quandt-Stiftung Foundation in Germany. Majed was born in the Jabalya refugee camp and has not yet been able to leave the Gaza Strip.
 Sulaiman Alfayoumi, 22, was born in Saudi Arabia but moved to Gaza -- his family's homeland -- when he was 10, so that his father (a professor of Arabic literature) could care for his ailing mother. An English literature graduate, Sulaiman is now working as a translator for the Mines Advisory Group, which works in current and former conflict zones to reduce the threat of death and injury from anti-personnel and anti-vehicle landmines, rockets, missiles, mortars, grenades, ammunition, small arms and light weapons, and many more types of deadly items. Gaza has many remnants of unexploded white phosphorous left over from the 2008/9 Israeli invasion, endangering many lives more than a year later.
 Mohammed Alnadi is a 23-year-old 2010 English literature graduate who is now working as a translator for Friends of Humanity International, an international human rights organization based in Vienna, Austria. Its researchers conduct fact-finding investigations into human rights abuses, particularly in relation to prisoners and detainees in conflict zones around the world. He is committed to working towards non-violent conflict resolution within an Islamic context, and hopes to study for a master's degree in ethics, peace and global affairs at American University in Washington DC.
 Salma Shawa is a 13-year-old student at Gaza's American International School. On Jan. 2, 2009, an Israeli air strike destroyed most of the buildings on the campus of the AIS -- the only co-educational school in the Strip -- and killed the night watchman. Salma was among the students interviewed by the international media that flooded the Strip following the Israeli invasion. Today, Salma is still attending AIS, but in smaller, more crowded temporary quarters, and one of the features that helped make the school a special place -- an international faculty -- is no more. Still, she has an unquenchable optimism for the future: "I want to build Gaza to be the best place in the world. I want to work as a buisnesswoman, to own and run my own companies so that I can make money and use it to help Gaza! I will build homes for all the poor, and each single person in Gaza will have work. If I win the people's hearts this way, someday I want to be elected president of Palestine!"
 Laila Samahadana, 12, attended the American International School with Salma until Hamas took control of the Gaza Strip in 2006 and her family (including a father who was a Fatah commander and an uncle -- a well-known resistance leader -- who was assassinated by the Israeli military) was forced to flee to Cairo. However, despite the internal political split -- and now, the geographic distance -- she and Salma have remained close friends and are united in their desire for peace and a free, independent Palestine, under one flag.
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June 10, 2010 - June 13, 2010
Asheville, North Carolina, USA
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Raleigh, North Carolina, USA
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June 15, 2010 - June 16, 2010
Washington, District of Columbia, USA
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Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA
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June 18, 2010 - June 19, 2010
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June 22, 2010 - June 25, 2010
The US Social Forum will provide a space to build relationships, learn from each other's experiences, and share analysis of the problems our communities face. It will help develop leadership, vision, and strategy needed to realize another world.
Detroit, Michigan, USA
at Cobo Hall & Hart Plaza
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