Munqeth Mehyar (Amman, Jordan), Nader Khateb (Bethlehem, Palestine) and Mira Edelstein (Tel Aviv, Israel) of FoEME, presented their projects at the European Parliament in Brussels before giving presentations to the respective institutes in Delft.

Gaining trust
The FoEME representatives explained how they gained trust in their environmental projects by working with children, youth and decision makers in the communities in the three countries. The projects raise awareness connectedness of land, ecosystems and people. The environment does not know borders. It it is mankind who create borders.

Jordan River Rehabilitation
In addition to the various environmental peace projects, the FoEME representatives presented their Jordan River Rehabilitation plan based on bringing back the environmental flow to the ecosystem. This stimulates nature development and tourism and contributes largely to the regional developments. The plan is gaining more attention by agencies such as the World Bank as a serious alternative to the large scale Red - Dead Sea Project that is to bring water from the Red Sea to the Dead sea.

Grass roots initiatives
The meeting demonstrated the successful development of grass roots environmental peace building initiatives, made possible in difficult political settings such as the Middle East. Several areas of future cooperation between the organisations involved were identified.

For more information please contact Dr. Ebel Smidt  and Ms. Roos ter Horst