Tuesday, March 11, 2008

Great News from Palestine -- Playgrounds #6 and #7 finally released from the port!

Those of you that have been following the blogs by PfP national board members Susan Abulhawa and Sonia Rosen (Sonia is there now and her blog is available here) during their time in Palestine know that PfP has been struggling with approval from the Israeli authorities to transport our playground equipment from the port to our partner ANERA.

Just today, Sonia found out that the materials have finally been released! She wrote:

"I received a call from Lana this afternoon while I was in the Old City, and she told me that we have received approval from the Israeli authorities to bring the playgrounds into the West Bank and install them at the two sites. They will be released from the port within the next few days and should arrive at the ANERA warehouse and be distributed to the their respective sites by the beginning of next week.

I am so relieved that this issue has been taken care of, even though I am still disappointed that I was not able to be here for the actual installation.

Thank you to Lana from ANERA for being so persistent with the authorities!"


The playgrounds will be installed in Bethelem and in Beit Anan (the Beit Anan site is at the left -- the playground will be a great addition!) The situation of having to wait so long for the equipment to be released from the port has underscored one of the benefits we will enjoy when we are able to construct the playgrounds in the West Bank instead of shipping them from the U.S. As if the opportunity to contribute to the local economy wasn't enough of an incentive, the red tape we can avoid certainly is!

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