Mathenesserdijk 416-D
3026GV Rotterdam
Netherlands
- Arts
- Environment/Sustainable development
- Heritage
- International/Cultural relations
- Youth and education
Abraham Path Initiative’s mission is to inspire understanding, prosperity and hope throughout the Middle East and Europe. It pursues this mission through projects in the field of socio-economic development, education and cultural dialogue between the Middle East and the rest of the world, Europe in particular.
API wants to dust off the footsteps of Abraham, the legendary spiritual forefather of most people living in the Mediterranean basin, and half humanity. By dusting off Abraham's footsteps, we shed a light on our shared values, hoping to show how much we have in common, and that no matter how many things divide us, what unites us is far greater.
The organization's activities could be grouped in three main categories: walk - hospitality - story; we have supported walking initiatives across the Middle East, where our main achievements have been supporting the Masar Ibrahim trail in the West Bank (www.masaribrahim.ps) and more recently, the Sinai Trail in the south of the Sinai peninsula, in Egypt (www.sinaitrail.org). Other countries in which we have helped build walking initiatives include Turkey and Jordan. These are all places where Abraham supposedly walked, and his legacy carries on. Hospitality services have sprung in the projects we've supported. Since then, foreign and local walkers have been flocking in these ancient lands. The exchanges have allowed for beautiful and inspiring story-telling in the media, that is depicting a different, more nuanced and definitely more positive, reality of the Middle East in Europe, US and the world.
Besides walking initiatives, API supports project Mosaic Stories (www.mosaicstories.org), which aims to collect and protect intangible cultural heritage along the Abraham Path cultural route through research, storytelling, and education. API also supports project Footsteps, an educational platform that uses the Abraham Path to engage students and faculty from around the world in immersive experiential education.
We can actively contribute to the Network in the Netherlands by:
participating in meetings, helping to generate ideas,
providing our knowledge and expertise, based on our work and background,
providing a fresh and different perspective on the Middle East,
providing an innovative approach on the connection between culture, nature, sports and development, etc.
actively engaging our partners in the Middle East, Europe, the United States and Brasil.
We think that we belong in Anna Lindh's networks, where we can exchange ideas and find partners in an environment of shared values. We believe that the Abrahamic values of hospitality, generosity and kindness to strangers, which help guide the core of our work, are shared all over the Mediterranean, in Europe, the Middle East, North Africa, and beyond, and serve as a bridge connecting our common heritage, reminding us of how much we have in common. We believe that the ALF network is a place that welcomes and caters to this philosophy, so we think that Abraham Path Initiative can greatly contribute to it.