Palestine Grassroots Distribution Project
is a small grassroots humanitarian project, growing out of urgent needs experienced by families that DSP connected to through our documentation in Gaza.
HISTORY:
Donkeysaddle released its first film about Gaza in 2011, about a family whose child had been killed and home destroyed in the 2009 assault. An audience member asked us how she could partner with us to support the family profiled in the film, and what later became known as Palestine Grassroots Distribution Project was born.
PGDP grows from Donkeysaddle's belief that we must make long-term commitments to places and people; we do not engage in "hit and run" storytelling.
In 2015, Donkeysaddle founder Jen Marlowe was working on an article for Al Jazeera America about the sanitation and water crisis in Gaza. As we began to drive away after an interview with a farmer, the man handed her a photo of his then six-year old little boy, and told us about Abdallah's rare lung disease, and how the family (desperately poor) couldn't afford the life-saving treatment that Abdallah needed. He saw Jen--a foreign journalist--as a possible life-line. Could we help his little boy? From that point on, DSP has raised funds for life-saving care for Abdallah, including medicine, high nutrient food and warm clothes to stave off a (potentially-fatal for Abdallah) bout of pneumonia or influenza, and more.
A few years later, the Israeli military began to deny Abdallah the permits they required to continue treatment in a hospital in Tel Aviv. Motivated by Abdallah's crisis, Jen began writing an article about children who need medical care, but are denied permission to leave Gaza by the Israeli military.
This reporting led DSP to Mohamad, a then12-year old boy who had been shot in the knee by an Israeli sniper while participating in the Great Return March, severing his main nerve. For six months, the Israeli military denied Mohamad a permit to travel to Jerusalem for nerve transplant surgery. DSP alerted Physicians for Human Rights-Israel about Mohamad's case, and PHRI successfully pressured the Israeli military to give him a permit for his surgery. We also began raising funds for Mohamad's ongoing needs, which includes follow-up medical care, a high-protein diet, and transportation to and from school.
Nerve transplant surgery, however, is extremely time-sensitive. Mohamad's surgery was six months late. The nerve transplantation was unsuccessful, and so was a follow-up surgery. Sadly, Mohamad's leg was amputated in October 2021, and follow up surgeries are scheduled. Our hope for Mohamad is that he will eventually be able to receive a prosthesis, and achieve his dream of playing soccer with his friends.
In 2019, DSP released the short film Kifah's Kindergarten, documenting the destruction of a kindergarten during the 2014 assault on Gaza. When two funders stepped up to ask how they might help Donkeysaddle rebuild the kindergarten, we immediately began coordinating with Kifah, and the kindergarten was rebuilt within months. When the school was damaged yet again in the 2021 assault, DSP coordinated and fundraised for its repair.
DSP also stepped in at moments of crisis (such as the onset of the COVID lockdown and the 2021 assault) and provided food, hygiene items, and assisted with medical care to families in urgent need, and has been able to support the education of several youth whose families' stories we have documented.
Your donation today will help Donkeysaddle continue to stand by families in Gaza, not only by documenting their stories, but also provide (on a small scale, grassroots basis) much needed humanitarian assistance.
