USAID Announces three new MEPPA awards this week in Jerusalem
USAID West Bank and Gaza Mission Director, Amy Tohill-Stull, U.S. Ambassador to Israel, Thomas R. Nides, and MEPPA Board Chair, George Salem, announced three new MEPPA grants this week in Jerusalem. Marking the occasion, the group met with representatives from each of the current MEPPA grant recipients, to celebrate the first year of programming under MEPPA. The three new grants totaled over $7.8m, including funding awarded to ALLMEP members Our Generation Speaks and Project Rozana.
ALLMEP member, Our Generation Speaks was awarded $4.5 million in support of their three-year Next Generation Acceleration. This program will create a generation of Israeli and Palestinian leaders from the West Bank, Gaza and Israel with the skills, motivation, and networks to see beyond conflict and build an entrepreneurial community committed to a more peaceful shared future.
ALLMEP Member, Project Rozana, received $2.3 million for their Palestinian-Israeli Specialist Nursing Hub. The project uses a systematic approach to cross-border cooperation as a form of health diplomacy and a way to improve health delivery. The project will engage nurses from leading Palestinian and Israeli healthcare institutions as practitioners and trainers.
“We are very pleased to receive this MEPPA grant for our Palestinian-Israeli Specialist Nursing Hub, as it will support significant expansion of our efforts to leverage the healthcare domain for peacebuilding activity,” said Kenneth Bob, Chair of Project Rozana USA. “This initiative will connect administrations at eight Israeli and Palestinian hospitals, engage hundreds of nurses and touch thousands more, while strengthening the Palestinian healthcare system.”
The third award announced at the event was for a $1 million, 2-year activity implemented by Reut USA. Their Making Peace program will connect Israelis and Palestinians and leverage engineering innovations and additive manufacturing tools, like 3D prosthetic printing, to create and disseminate affordable solutions for the elderly and disabled.
These awards build on five previously announced grants, to ALLMEP members, Appleseeds, EcoPeace Middle East, Peres Center for Peace and Innovation, and Tomorrow’s Youth Organization, and the fifth to Mercy Corps.
“Thanks to MEPPA, we are expanding our activities across Jerusalem, using technology education to offer hundreds more young people the ability to dream big—for themselves and their communities. This grant has had a transformational effect on Appleseeds’ work as an organization and we are looking forward to this next phase of pursuing shared goals with our partners at USAID,” said Alex Feder, Appleseeds International Donor Relations Officer. “We were proud to host Ambassador Nides, Advisory Board Chairman George Salem, and the USAID team last week to show them what they can expect to see from our graduates in the coming months and years. The excitement in the room was palpable and left the whole Appleseeds team feeling inspired, motivated, and ready to take the project into implementation.”
These announcements come on the heels of the publication of a thorough overview of MEPPA’s first year by ALLMEP’s founder and president Avi Meyerstein, which includes recommendations for how MEPPA can continue to grow in both impact and scale, building off this strong first year of grant making. Join ALLMEP in congratulating and celebrating these grant recipients and stay tuned for regular updates on their programming. MEPPA allocates $250 million over five years to peacebuilding and economic development projects in the region. This first year is only the beginning. We look forward to working alongside USAID, our members, and all peacebuilding organizations in the region to help create a more just and peaceful reality for Israelis and Palestinians.
For more information, check out these press releases from USAID and visit USAID.gov for regular updates on MEPPA programming.
