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KUALA LUMPUR, April 26, 2012 (WAFA) - The Global Donors Forum, opened on Thursday by the prime minister of Malaysia, Dato' Sri Najib Razak, has featured “Rebuilding to Remain in Palestine” as a trendsetter program, according to a press release.

Award-winning Palestinian-Colombian architect Hani Hassan and M.I.T. engineer Donna Baranski-Walker, founder of Rebuilding Alliance, presented their Architecture, Advocacy, and Crowdsource Mortgage Financing work with the Palestinian village of al-Aqaba at the forum.

The Global Donors Forum is the annual convening of the World Congress of Muslim Philanthropists to promote effective giving and forge strategic partnerships for high-impact social investment.

The “Rebuilding to Remain in Palestine” initiative was developed in a partnership between al-Aqaba, a Palestinian village in the Jordan Valley, near Tubas, located in an area under full Israeli control known as Area C, and the American nonprofit, Rebuilding Alliance, based in San Mateo, California.

In 2003, just after al-Aqaba village won a landmark decision by the Israeli High Court requiring the removal of an Israeli army training camp from village grounds, Rebuilding Alliance helped al-Aqaba construct a kindergarten that now serves 130 children.

That kindergarten has attracted the further investment of 17 countries, U.N. agencies, and NGOs in al-Aqaba despite demolition orders issued by the Israeli army against the mosque, medical clinic, the kindergarten and all the homes but two, for lack of unattainable building permits.

“This is my smallest project but my most important,” said Hassan who won the European Center's 2010 International Architecture Award for his energy-efficient Desert House in Jericho.

“Al-Aqaba village symbolizes the struggle of thousands of families in the Palestinian Territory for a better life. A life with freedom and dignity starts with rebuilding their demolished homes, designing affordable new homes that reflect their culture, dreams and hopes.”

The villagers of al-Aqaba asked Rebuilding Alliance to help them build new homes when they realized that demolition orders issued by the Israeli army against 97% of their village meant there could soon be no village to return to.

Working with Hassan and a vibrant team of advisers in an architectural design charrette, they designed affordable, expandable new homes. Three are now in construction with 30 planned. Having completed 3 detailed master plans, the al-Aqaba village council issued its own building permits, becoming the first Palestinian town in Area C — that 62% of the West Bank solely controlled by Israel — to do so.

A month later, Rebuilding Alliance became the first to offer an Islamic-compliant mortgage loan to families living in Area C, with the provision that if the home is demolished the family does not repay their loan until occupancy is restored.

“We hope people throughout the world will contribute to this courageous building project and so spread-out the financial risk of demolition while engaging their own elected officials to press for the policy change needed to keep these families safe,” said Donna Baranski-Walker, founder of Rebuilding Alliance.

“Al-Aqaba village — and the other 148 Palestinian villages in Area C — deserve the right to live on the land they own, send their children to school down the street, worship freely, and plan their future. These are basic human rights that cannot wait,” she said.

M.S.