Road to Recovery is a non-profit organisation that provides transport for hundreds of Palestinian children suffering from cancer, leukaemia, kidney disease and other life threatening illnesses.
Yuval, a 60-year-old carpenter, founded the organisation as a way to recover from his own personal tragedy. In 1993, his brother Udi was kidnapped and killed by members of Hamas who were dressed as Orthodox Jews when they offered him a lift in their car.
"I heard an interview on Israeli radio with a man who lost his son in the same way," Yuval said. "After the interview, I called him and he told me about a group he was establishing dialogue for bereaved Israeli and Palestinian families."
This was the Parents Circle-Families Forum (PCFF). Founded by Yitzhak Frankenthal in 1995, PCFF is a grassroots organisation of Palestinians and Israelis who have lost immediate family members due to the conflict. The PCFF operates under the principle that a process of reconciliation is a prerequisite for achieving a sustained peace.
Yuval was invited to join them and one day a Palestinian member asked for help in getting his child to hospital. Yuval realised that there were many families with similar needs and Road to Recovery was born — which now has around 500 volunteers transporting hundreds of patients from the Palestinian Territories to hospitals in Israel. The volunteers seek to break down the barriers of mistrust between Israelis and Palestinians, transporting Palestinian patients on round-trips from the West Bank and Gaza to hospitals throughout Israel for treatment, hospitalisation and check-ups.
Apart from the obvious benefits to the patients, this kind of project brings together many Palestinian field volunteers, hospital personnel and fellow non-profit Israeli and Palestinian organisations. These projects are therefore as much about the nurturing of mutual respect, trust and dialog as they are about individual patients’ physical recovery. Through their actions, the volunteers seek to break down the barriers of mistrust between Israelis and Palestinians.
View across the divide
