USD Magazine Fall 2016

or Skylar Lawrence ’08 (MA), her connection to the Middle East began when she was in eighth grade and her father served as a Fulbright scholar in Cyprus. She travelled extensively and fell in love with the region. She returned to do her master’s capstone research in the West Bank and then served as project manager for Dr. Alon Ben-Meir, an academic who facilitates track-two dialogues in the Middle East, and coordinated Dr. Ben-Meir’s campaign to promote the Arab Peace Initiative.

also men, women and children who make great sacrifices to find a way out of conflict, to preserve their families, and to build new lives from the ashes of war. “Our long-term goal is a society where everyone feels they are valued equally, lives and choices are respected, and people have equal access to resources to live their lives with the freedom to pursue their aspirations,” says Dadkhah. “That’s the ultimate goal.” Diana Kutlow ‘03 (MA) is the director of development and alumni relations at the Joan B. Kroc School of Peace Studies.

persons, our brothers and sisters, men and women, young and old, boys and girls who weep, suffer and die.” Kroc School alumni see in their work every day that there are

After moving into fundraising with the Jewish Community Center in San Diego, Lawrence is now the director of donor development for American Near East Refugee Aid (ANERA), which works with refugees and poor families, including Pales- tinian and Syrian refugees and their host communities through health, education and economic development, and provides emergency response assistance. Lawrence says that one of the most rewarding parts of her work has been the opportunity to visit ANERA’s programs in Lebanon and Palestine to see their impact in person. A touching example is the ANERA’s Gaza Land Restoration Project, which helped farmers in Khan Younis restore fields that had been destroyed by Israeli artillery fire. Tilling the soil, fertilizing and getting proper seeds and irrigation, the farmers deeply appreciated the way that ANERA staff really listened to their needs and acknowl- edged that the farmers would know best what was needed. To build sustainability, ANERA provides a yearlong mentorship that trains farmers to build their capacity so that the project’s effects continue when ANERA finishes its work. Lawrence remembers having tea with a farmer in his potato field, speaking through a translator, and seeing the pride that he and his family took in their successful new crop. “After the first harvest of the restored farmlands, the farmers were so grateful for their bounty that they delivered boxes of extra produce to families who were still displaced after the 2014 war,” recounts Lawrence. “They called their deliveries ‘From Poor Farmer to Poor Family.’ I was deeply moved by their incredibly beautiful gesture of generosity and solidarity.” As Pope Francis said during his U.N. talk, “In wars and conflicts there are individual

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