Humanitarian Catastrophe in Gaza #Palestine | Mara Kronenfeld | UNRWA-USA
Mara Kronenfeld, the Executive Director of UNRWA-USA, gives context about the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza right now and the devastating impact the 17-year long blockade has had on Palestinian life.
This episode was recorded on October 20 at 15:30 Palestine time.
Mara Kronenfeld joined UNRWA USA in February 2020 as its new Executive Director. In this role, Mara leads a team of 8 in the United States to educate the American public about the plight of Palestine refugees and raise funds for UNRWA’s critical programs in the Middle East.
Having focused most of her career on international development, Mara has over 15 years of experience designing, implementing, and leading youth development programming in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. Mara has extensive leadership experience in youth development with a strong focus on program design and development, organizational capacity strengthening, and multi-sectoral partnership cultivation and collaboration.
Mara previously served as Regional Director of MENA and Eurasia programs at the International Youth Foundation (IYF) where she worked for over a decade. She earlier held positions at AMIDEAST and the American University in Cairo. At AMIDEAST, Mara managed corporate, foundation, and individual fundraising efforts and managed the Fulbright scholarship program for students from the MENA region. Mara was a U.S. Fulbright grantee to Syria herself between 2001 and 2003 and while in Syria, managed a U.S. State Department-funded teacher training project and UNRWA’s English Language Club for Palestinian vocational students.
Mara holds a Masters Degree in Near Eastern Studies from New York University and a Bachelors Degree in Anthropology from Stanford University.
THIS SERIES IS PART OF THE AFIKRA PODCAST NETWORK
Palestinian history and culture will not be erased. History warns us how media's dehumanizing rhetoric can pave the way for targeted aggression and allow society to permit atrocities as grave as genocide. It is resolutely within our mission to counteract this dehumanizing narrative. Afikra has always stood in unwavering solidarity with our Palestinian sisters & brothers and individuals of all nationalities and faiths around the world who bravely protest the illegal Israeli occupation of Palestine and condemn the state violence of the Israeli colonial settler project.
After the events of October 7, 2023 it felt impossible to go on with the podcast like business as usual. So we dedicated The afikra Podcast programming to special episodes relevant to understanding the historical context to what is happening in Palestine. Each episode was recorded in real-time and uploaded to YouTube and everywhere you get your podcasts. For most of these, the time of recording is key to understanding the context in which these conversations took place so make sure to refer to these and to check out all of these highly informative conversations with guests who are from completely different disciplines and have generously shared their time and insight in these dark times.
And as we entered the new year and the atrocities continue, we deemed it necessary to create an exclusive series dedicated to Palestinian history and culture. This is how this podcast came about and will continue to exist so long as the fight for liberation and peace continues.
