Gaithersburg, MD.  “In Unity, We Build a Caring Community” is the theme for the 2010 Arab American Heritage Month Festival, hosted by the City of Gaithersburg’s Multicultural Affairs Committee along with Arab Americans of Montgomery County.  The event will be held on Sunday, April 11, 2010 from noon to 4 p.m. at the Activity Center at Bohrer Park, 506 South Frederick Avenue, next to Gaithersburg High School.
 
The free festival will feature poetry readings, arts and crafts, folkloric dance and music, Middle-Eastern food, cultural exhibits, vendors, henna, calligraphy, and children’s activities.  For more information please contact Samira Hussein at 301-412-7779 or Juliet Francisco at 301-330-2445 or e-mail arabheritagefestival@gmail.com.
 
On April 5, in a proclamation to be issued during the Mayor and City Council Meeting, April 2010 will be declared as Arab-American Heritage Month in the City of Gaithersburg.  The proclamation will recognize the Arab-American community and celebrate its achievements and contributions to the fabric of our society.
 
For more information on Gaithersburg’s multicultural outreach initiatives please contact the Gaithersburg Community Services Division at 301-258-6395 or visit the City’s website at www.gaithersburgmd.gov.

 

Britta Monaco - Public Information Director
301-258-6310 - www.gaithersburgmd.go

++++


As a reminder, if you plan on attending Thursday's Iraq briefing with Nir Rosen and Elizabeth Campbell, please RSVP to Peter Juul at pjuul@americanprogress.org .

---

Iraq Briefing and Discussion with Nir Rosen and Elizabeth Campbell

The Center for American Progress invites you to an on-the-record briefing and discussion with journalist Nir Rosen of NYU’s Center on Law and Security and Elizabeth Campbell of Refugees International on Iraq’s complex political, security, sectarian, and humanitarian issues and what the United States and United Nations can do to help.

Rosen and Campbell have just returned from a three week trip through Baghdad, Diyala, Salahuddin, and Babil provinces, visiting locations off-limits to the media.

The briefing will be from noon to 2 PM on Thursday, March 18, in the Center’s large conference room on the 11th floor. The Center is located at 1333 H Street NW.

 

Nir Rosen is a journalist and Fellow at the New York University Center on Law and Security. He has spent over four years reporting from Iraq since 2003. He was most recently in Iraq in February 2010. His work on Iraq has been published by the New Yorker magazine, The New York Times magazine, Harper’s magazine, Rolling Stone magazine and similar publications. Rosen has also worked on documentaries in Iraq, including one for British Channel 4 and he filmed the scenes in Iraq for the ground breaking documentary "No End in Sight" which won an award at the Sundance film festival and was nominated for an Academy Award. Rosen has also consulted for the advocacy group Refugees International, and he wrote reports for them about Iraqi refugees and the internally displaced. His book on Iraq, In the Belly of the Green Bird: The Triumph of the Martyrs in Iraq, was published in 2006 and then republished in soft cover under the title The Triumph of the Martyrs, in 2008. Rosen has also reported from Afghanistan, Pakistan, the former Yugoslavia, Somalia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Uganda, Kenya, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Yemen, Turkey and Egypt. He has focused on militias and resistance groups, on religious radicals and dangerous, hard to get to places that are essential for understanding current events. He has lived in Istanbul, Turkey, and now lives in Beirut, Lebanon. His new book on the Arab world is expected to be published in 2010. He has made several trips throughout Somalia between 2005 to 2009 for a book he is writing about the Horn of Africa. His latest article on Iraq can be found here.

Elizabeth Campbell joined Refugees International in November 2009 as a Senior Advocate and leads the work on Iraq. Previously she was director of Refugee Council USA for three years. In this capacity, she led the policy and advocacy work of the nongovernmental organization (NGO) coalition that focuses on refugee protection and resettlement. She has worked with UNHCR’s Protection Unit in Nairobi, Kenya as well as with two different NGOs in Kakuma Refugee Camp in Kenya providing education and other assistance. For two years Elizabeth worked with a local NGO in Jerusalem conducting research and writing about the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. She also worked with a local NGO in Dheisheh Refugee Camp in Bethlehem on Palestinian refugee issues. She received her Ph.D. from Binghamton University –State University of New York in Sociology. Her dissertation, “Refugee Protection Challenges in the Era of Globalization: the Case of Nairobi,� focused on urban refugee protection, livelihoods, and possibilities for local integration. Elizabeth has published her findings in the Journal of Refugee Studies, Refugee Survey Quarterly, and for the Global Commission on International Migration as well as other edited book collections. Elizabeth is an adjunct faculty member at Georgetown Law School and James Madison University.