Itaf Awad, Palestine

I grew up very poor and in a village, helping my mother to raise our family since my father died when I was 18. I took on the role of provider and father to help the family survive. During these times my grandmother also was my role model and her door was always open to people who would go into her house for food, healing, and stories. This was my place of learning.

Ten years after finishing high school, I finished my matriculation exams and began to study political science at college. Then later when I turned 40, I founded the village women’s association in the council as the women’s advisor for women’s affairs. We empowered women in politics, finance, health, and more. We became a model for village women’s associations until in 2003 we founded a women’s party that ran for election in the village for the first time. Even though we didn’t win, we had planted seeds for change in the village.

In the late ‘90’s I decided to join the Bat Shalom women’s peace organization – a political group that demonstrated and was in solidarity with Palestinians. I remember after the second Intifada, my nieces and nephews asking me, “Do you still believe in peace? Do you still believe the Jews?” I decided to ask them to draw their feelings of anger and what I saw made me afraid for how they were viewing the world. It was clear they did not understand the difference between people and politics AND that all Jews were not the same. That was the point when I became a peace activist. Now I do this for myself and for my family before doing it for others because that’s where it must first start.

On my new path, I was introduced to Council Listening Circles and learned the practice of how to live in peace with myself, how to listen compassionately, and tell my story from my heart. I saw what it did for me, letting me live in peace with others even in the most difficult periods, being balanced within myself and with others, giving me the ability to meet and honor and respect them, and to dialogue peace even in war.

In 2003, I began studying with Beyond Words and working with Creativity for Peace summer camp, organizations I still work with today. I am also active in the Women of Vision, the Circle work organization of Jalaja Bonheim and teach women’s empowerment and peace for organizations and institutions today in Israel and Palestine.

Through it all, I guess I am an optimist. Sometimes I see peace getting closer and then it moves away. Sometimes I see it closing and then it opens again. But I never give up hope. I will continue my path toward peace and believes that everyone deserves to live in honor, security, with home and in their country wherever they may be.