The Big 4-0!
Celebrating 40 Years of Doing Hope
Download our 40th anniversary brochure

As we reach this milestone, we mark 40 years of calling for justice, doing hope and creativity. These decades have brought profound challenges and deep sorrow, but also countless experiences of joy, solidarity and the unstoppable power of communities coming together.

Even in the current darkness, we hold onto what has sustained us — the belief that another world is possible, and the commitment to keep working towards it. 

Please come and celebrate with us on 20th September at St John’s Waterloo in London. We will be committing ourselves to the next phase of the journey and bringing to life some of the memories featured in our 40th anniversary booklet, which is enclosed with this mailing.

Continuing the journey

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In 2021, as part of the Palestine Heritage Trail, we were walking down the dry wadi (river) that divides Teqoa (the Palestinian town and birthplace of the prophet Amos) from the illegal Israeli settlement of Tekoa. As we were finishing lunch, we heard a thunder crack, and our guide made us leave immediately to take shelter in a nearby cave. A light rain fell for the next 30 minutes — the sort you would never have bothered sheltering from if walking in the UK.

As the rain came to an end, streams started to flow down the arid cliff faces, rapidly picking up momentum. Within minutes, where we had had lunch, a torrent of water 15 feet tall carrying boulders before it, careered down the wadi. When the prophet Amos said, “Let justice flow like rivers”, this was what he meant. 

This was his lived experience — not some pastoral chalk stream, but a careering wall of water that takes all before it. This is what we’re committed to and what our hope is rooted in. Not drip-feed justice. Not temporary cease-fires in Gaza. Not propaganda food aid programmes. Or rebuilding plans for lives in segregated enclaves surrounded by walls and controlled by Israeli forces.

Hope doesn’t recognise these, and I doubt Amos would either. To do hope in the face of the onslaught is not easy, but the alternative, ‘hopelessness’, has even less appeal and quickly becomes self-fulfilling. 

Supporting our friends and partners

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We continue to run our Gaza and West Bank appeal. How could we stop? The last 600 days in Gaza have shown us the worst sides of humanity and some of the very best. Our partners and friends on the ground have continued to amaze us in the face of bombardments, starvation and so much loss (very often at a highly personal level) and to show what Sumud, or you can call it Hope, really means. Your ongoing support continues to make a huge and tangible difference on the ground. Al Ahli Hospital in Gaza City has reopened within days of each horrific attack. 

DSPR have changed the location of their trauma work again and again as their sites have been destroyed or were no longer accessible. MA’AN, Welfare Association and the Gaza Sunbirds have used every resource they could to find ways to feed their communities. When we least expected it, pictures have come through of them distributing hot meals or water against all the odds. 

We Are Not Numbers has continued to support young writers in Gaza to tell their stories, as well as equipping a new generation of children (through the support of a tent school in al Mawasi) who have been denied education since 7th October 2023. Meanwhile, on the West Bank, as settler attacks grow and conditions get harder, our partners have been ramping up their operations to make sure that they do all they can to prevent communities from losing their land. 

Standing with us 

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We also want to acknowledge all those still pressuring parliament to act, despite the obstacles, rhetoric and empty words. And the artists, musicians, lawyers, writers, cooks and countless others involved in daily acts of solidarity across the country, calling to: “End the Genocide! Stop arming Israel! Enforce International Law.”

Thank you so much for your ongoing contributions. Every donation you make is transforming lives — funding emergency relief, keeping hospitals running, providing education in impossible circumstances and enabling communities to hold onto their land. Your generosity continues to make an extraordinary difference and we know that with your continued support, we can keep this vital work going.