wfn.org | WCC Update: New accompaniers join the EAPPI

["WCC Media" <Media@wcc-coe.org>]

World Council of Churches - Update
Contact: + 41 22 791 6153 +41 79 507 6363 media@wcc-coe.org 
 
For immediate release: 13 December 2004

NEW GROUP OF ECUMENICAL ACCOMPANIERS JOINS THE EAPPI

A new group of 15 ecumenical accompaniers arrived in Israel and Palestine
last week. They join six staying on from the previous group, bringing the
total number on the ground in the Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in
Palestine and Israel (EAPPI) to 21. 

The nine women and six men in the new group range in age from 26 to 68. Five
Britons head the list, including one participant who is Jewish, followed by
four accompaniers from Germany, three from Sweden, two from Norway, and one
from Switzerland. "I am very happy to welcome everyone," said Lutheran Bishop
Munib Younan, in greeting the new group, "especially having a Jewish
participant in the EAPPI who joins in the human chain working for peace and
justice in the Holy Land." 

Ecumenical Accompaniers, who serve a minimum of three months, work with local
churches, Palestinian and Israeli NGOs, as well as Palestinian communities in
various capacities, to try to reduce the brutality of the occupation and
improve the daily lives of both peoples. Accompaniers will continue to be
placed in Bethlehem, Hebron, Jayyous, Jerusalem, Nablus, Ramallah, Tulkarem,
and Yanoun.

Accompaniers will also be working with various organizations during their
time here, including: the YMCA in Beit Sahour and Tulkarem; the Alternative
Information Center (AIC), a joint Palestinian-Israeli initiative; Wi'am, the
Palestinian Conflict Resolution Centre in Bethlehem; B'tselem, the Israeli
Information Centre for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories in its Nablus
office, and the YWCA, the Women's Centre for Legal Aid and Counseling
(WCLAC), General Union of Palestinian Women (GUPW), and the Palestinian
Working Women's Society for Development (PWWSD) in Ramallah. 

Since the programme was launched in August 2002, 168 Ecumenical Accompaniers
have participated from more than 30 churches and ecumenical partners in 12
countries: Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Ireland, New Zealand, Norway,
South Africa, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

For more information on the EAPPI: 
http://www.eappi.org

The Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine and Israel (EAPPI) was
launched in August 2002. Ecumenical accompaniers monitor and report
violations of human rights and international humanitarian law, support acts
of non-violent resistance alongside local Christian and Muslim Palestinians
and Israeli peace activists, offer protection through non-violent presence,
engage in public policy advocacy, and stand in solidarity with the churches
and all those struggling against the occupation. The programme is
co-ordinated by the World Council of Churches. 

Additional information: Juan Michel,+41 22 791 6153 +41 79 507 6363
media@wcc-coe.org 

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The World Council of Churches is a fellowship of churches, now 342, in more
than 120 countries in all continents from virtually all Christian traditions.
The Roman Catholic Church is not a member church but works cooperatively with
the WCC. The highest governing body is the assembly, which meets
approximately every seven years. The WCC was formally inaugurated in 1948 in
Amsterdam, Netherlands. Its staff is headed by general secretary Samuel Kobia
from the Methodist church in Kenya.