Appeal: Sponsor a student at Bethlehem University

The best way of ensuring peace in the world is through friendship and education.

With that belief as its mission, the Friends of Bethlehem University in Ireland has as its campaign to support the students of Bethlehem University in occupied Palestine.

Bethlehem University is the only Christian university in the Holy Land and its students need our help. The occupation of the Palestinian State by the Israeli Government deprives families economically, with the result that sky- rocketing unemployment rates challenge the ability of Palestinian families to support their sons and daughters in their university careers.

The entire structure of higher education in Palestine is severely constrained by the Israeli occupation which prevents Palestinian students from reaching the universities with any regularity and results in the student populations being restricted to the immediate localities of the universities. They are effectively prisoners in their own neighbourhood.

International mobility opportunities for Palestinian students, such as the EU-funded Erasmus Mundus programme are made increasingly inaccessible by the Israeli Government's local and international mobility restrictions. This effectively prevents Palestinian students from participating in the Erasmus programme, and in other international student programmes and events, all of which the Israeli university students participate in freely.

Our interest and support for the Palestinian students is of enormous psychological as well as financial importance for them. We therefore have embarked on a campaign to raise the necessary funds to be allocated by Bethlehem University to worthy and needy student applicants who without this support would not be able to undertake a degree course in that university.

Our strategy is to raise funds to meet the fees for the education of underprivileged students who will be identified by the University. Our immediate target is to raise €20,000 which will support five students who will be starting next September for the 2016 / 17 academic year. Your contribution at whatever level you can manage, will be greatly appreciated by these students who will be informed that their fees are being paid by their Friends in Ireland. Thank you.

Please make your donation by either by: Cheque to: Friends of Bethlehem University in Ireland, c/o 89 Lower Leeson Street, Dublin 2, or direct to the AIB bank account : 'Friends of Bethlehem University in Ireland' AIB, 69/71 Morehampton Road, Dublin 4, Account number 11584 - 035. Sort code: 93-10-39, IBAN: IE 74 AIBK 9310 3911 5840 35, BIC: AIBKIE2D.

As a registered Charity, the FBUI may claim tax relief on donations of €250 and over. Please give your name and address for our acknowledgement.

Council: Chairman: Prof John Kelly, Hon Secretary: Br Stephen Deignan FSC Hon Treasurer: Dr Dermot MacDonald Members: Prof Cathal Brugha, Prof Patrick Cunningham, Prof Vincent Durac, Dr Niall Holohan, Feargal Hynes, John Hume, Merlo Kelly, Prof Dermot McAleese, Peter McEvoy, Dr Paola Rivetti, Dr Tony Scott

Friends of Bethlehem University in Ireland, c/o 89, Lower Leeson Street, Dublin 2

Email: jjkelly@ucd.ie

For more information see: www.fbui.ie