AJL magazine - Asian Jewish Life

Best of AJLby Erica Lyonson five countries: Burma, Cambodia,India, Sri Lanka and Thailand. In eachof these countries they have localrepresentatives who are best equippedto assist in identifying potential grantees,to monitor the grantees’ work and toprovide them with support in terms ofcapacity development and networkingopportunities. This list of countrieshowever is not exhaustive. Perhapssomewhat surprisingly, as a Jewishorganization, they also have providedfunding for grassroots organizationsin Aceh, Indonesia and even Pakistan.The work in Aceh was focused on posttsunamidevelopment and the workin Pakistan began in 2005 focusedon emergency relief for earthquakevictims. They also provided assistancein Pakistan in 2007 and 2010 withfunding for disaster relief after massiveflooding ravaged the country. Workingin Pakistan has not been without extraordinarychallenges. Security concernswere raised both with the content of theirpartners’ work as well as their affiliationwith AJWS, a Jewish organization. Thedecision was therefore made not topublicize the names of these grantees.AJWS granteeIn their response to the Indian OceanTsunami, it was not only about disasterrelief, AJWS was at the forefront ofreconstruction work. As Messingerpoints out, as an organization they werethe first on the ground actually replacingfishing boats and nets, helping localpeople to begin to rebuild their lives.This is their model. They aim to movequickly from the initial and necessaryemergency relief work into the nextphase, which is engaging in developmentwork post-disaster that will have a longtermimpact on recovery. They specificallyfocus on projects that promote changefrom within and empower local peopleby funding grassroots/community-ledorganizations primarily focused on: civiland political rights, natural resourcerights and healthcare.Their grant making is guided by severalmain principles. They strongly believethat grassroots organizations arein the best position to evaluate andarticulate their own needs. Likewise,they are the ones able to put theseprograms into place and drive them.Real change is made when it comesfrom within through the empowermentof marginalized people. In the same vein,AJWS recognizes that while womenstatistically are more marginalized thantheir male counterparts and suffer moreAJWS granteefrom the effects of poverty, hunger anddeprivation, when empowered theyare real change makers. Unfortunatelythough, issues of gender-based violenceand oppression, particularly in developingcountries, often impede women frombecoming the positive force for changethat can improve their societies. AJWSis very vocal about the need to addressissues like gender-based violence andoppression in order to overcome theobstacles they create in the fight forglobal justice. They know that nothing10 ASIAN JEWISH LIFE ISSUE 11