We are proud to share with you our 2019 Annual Report on the accomplishments we achieved and the challenges alQaws’ leadership and activists faced over the last year. While the past few years all have been exceptional and ever-changing, 2019 was a particularly extraordinary milestone and important shift in our journey, progress, and overall organizational work. The most exciting change has been the progress we witnessed in Palestinian society’s perception and attitudes on sexual and gender diversity. Our organization and our activism have become more visible to wider masses of Palestinian society, and in this process we have walked with our society through a transition from social denial and renunciation toward a new phase of active, visible, audible engagement with LGBTQ issues. 

The main section of this report, “Unrelenting Resistance,” presents our reflections and thoughts on advancing our organizing in light of the turbulent year we just experienced. While we have previously written about the violence and persecution we encountered last year, here we provide the most comprehensive account of the violent events we faced in 2019. We share with you the urgent organizational questions we had to address, and the creative ways we found to contend with them. 

The second part of the report presents our most significant achievements, including the further development of long-run projects and initiatives, and the launching of new ones. We have witnessed noticeable growth in many aspects of our organizing, such as welcoming thousands of new followers on all of our social media platforms as we expanded the reach of our cultural, artistic, and musical productions as such “Tarwiha: LGBT Youth Comic;” and the hundreds of LGBTQ individuals who have reached out to our “alKhat: Listening & Information Hotline.” We have also actively engaged the hundreds of professionals, students, and activists who took part in our sexual and gender diversity training programs led by our devoted, inspiring, and hardworking activists. 

With this vast expansion of the scope of alQaws’ work and the increased visibility it has garnered, we naturally expanded internally, too. The biggest change was the growth of our community organizing team and the welcoming of two new community organizers to our professional team, who cover alQaws outreach and community building efforts across different  areas in Palestine. We also grew our group facilitators’ team that runs alQaws’ popular youth groups, and we welcomed a new group of trained activists to our dedicated volunteer team responsible for running “alKhat: Listening & Information Hotline.” Finally, we also began a restructuring process inside our professional training program that will allow us to expand and strengthen the skills and knowledge of the activist team responsible for providing the training courses. 

With more gratitude than we can express, we thank our supporters and all those who stood by, with, and for us this past year. Whether you were at the front lines of a demonstration, or showing solidarity from afar, we are glad you are here and we invite you to explore these pages to become more familiar with all that we achieved in 2019. 

We look forward to another inspiring year of work, collaboration, and growth in 2020!

Click the image below to read the full report