The Foundation at a Glance
The AM Qattan Foundation was founded in 1994 and registered as a charity in the UK. Since 1998, it has worked towards the development of culture and education, with a particular focus on children, teachers and young artists.
The Qattan Centre for Educational Research and Development actively participates in raising the standards of education and teaching in Palestine. It engages directly with schoolteachers in developing their skills and knowledge to improve learning conditions for pupils of all ages.
The Qattan Centre for the Child in Gaza City holds over 120,000 books and other media and offers a variety of library and information services. Established to compensate for the lack of incentives and opportunities open to children at school and elsewhere, it aims to nurture their curiosity, expand their knowledge and facilitate their access to outside cultures. The Centre is visited by an average of 600 children every day.
The Culture and Arts Programme supports talented people, particularly the young, in a number of creative fields, offering them incentives to develop their skills and explore new horizons. It also promotes cultural collaboration between Palestine, the Arab region and the rest of the world. Three major projects embody the spirit of this work: a funding programme in the performing arts, co-financed with the Ford Foundation; the Palestinian Audio-visual Project (renamed the Audio-visual Unit in 2010) which works in film and television training and production support, DVD publishing and distribution, school film education and film subtitling, initially co-funded with the European Union and since 2010 with the Kingdom of the Netherlands; and, most recently, the Gaza Music School Project, co-funded with the Swedish International Development Agency.
The Mosaic Rooms, a space for exhibitions, lectures and workshops in West London, opened to the general public in November 2008. A permanent new office building in Ramallah combined with a state-of-the-art cultural centre is currently in the design phase .
The Al-Qattan family underwrites the Foundation’s administrative expenses and a majority of its programme costs in order to ensure its independence.
Vision
A just, free, enlightened and tolerant society with a global presence; one that embraces dialogue and is a producer of knowledge, art and literature.
Mission Statement
An independent, not-for-profit developmental institution working in the culture and education sectors targeting a variety of social groups, particularly children, teachers and young artists, which
- aims to empower free-thinking, enlightened individuals to overcome the challenges of war and injustice and to create a flourishing and dynamic society in Palestine and the Arab World;
- adopts a long-term, participatory developmental ethos through programmes that foster critical thinking, research, creativity and the production of knowledge, while also providing an inspiring model of transparency and excellence;
- advocates cultural and educational development as an essential tool of resistance for a society faced by conditions of acute political instability and humanitarian catastrophe.
Values
Defence of the rights and dignity of all
Inspired by the enduring vision enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which affirms that “All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood,” the Foundation supports women and men to combine their self-development with the service of others, specifically through the provision of inclusive public services of a high standard.
Freedom, pluralism, dialogue, the production of knowledge and new thinking
The Foundation believes in the individual’s rights to freedom of thought, creed, and free expression. These rights are key components of its internal policies and its work in the fields of culture and education, where the sharing of ideas and practices is considered essential for the production of knowledge and new thinking.
Working in a collegiate spirit of productivity
The Foundation is aware that it can only realise its goals if it has the support of its target constituencies and their shared agreement on the value, meaning and potential effectiveness of its work. As such, it always aims to operate in a collegiate spirit of cooperation and partnership with its staff and the groups it serves, whether they are children, artists or teachers.
The courage to be just
The Foundation realises that long-term peace, equality and prosperity require the courage to be just and defend the oppressed.
