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Established in East Jerusalem in 1998, MEND has been a pioneer in the field of active nonviolence for more than twenty years, with the overall goal of contributing to a peaceful future in the region.
MEND's role has been as a catalyst for change towards peace through opening a space for peace, where people have enough self-respect to be able to respect others and see each other's humanity without hostility and fear. This role is especially crucial at this time of increasing turbulence.
The rationale for our work and our approach has been based on the belief that people can change. We work towards shifting consciousness away from seeing solutions in military terms towards nonviolent solutions, including building hope, demilitarising minds, and perceiving the conflict through the lens of human security. To maximise our effects, in our efforts to mainstream nonviolence, we have worked especially through innovative methodologies in education, training and media.
MEND is a registered Palestinian non-governmental organisation, one of the few still headquartered in East Jerusalem, with a branch office in Bethlehem.
Programmes run across East Jerusalem, the West Bank, and Gaza, with regional partnerships extending into Jordan and beyond.
To empower communities — especially youth and women — to become agents of peaceful change through active nonviolence education, participatory approaches, dialogue, and advocacy, while strengthening partnerships, understanding, and knowledge to advance sustainable peace.
We believe people can change. When communities are equipped with active-nonviolence skills, participatory media, and platforms to tell their own stories, they begin to see conflict through the lens of human security rather than military force. That shift in consciousness — multiplied through trained Menders, educators, and community facilitators — builds the hope, self-respect, and mutual recognition that make sustainable peace possible.
Lucy Nusseibeh is the founder and director of MEND, which she established in East Jerusalem in 1998. She has lived in Palestine since 1978, taught cultural studies at Birzeit University, and later directed the Institute of Modern Media at Al-Quds University. She has also served with the Nonviolent Peaceforce and GPPAC. In this talk she shares lessons from that path: how stereotypes start young, why small media can travel farther than a million-dollar campaign, and why nonviolence is about creating space rather than preaching.
Watch on YouTube