Voices for Palestine, a student organization, is holding a series of events called “Take a Stance” beginning today to educate the public about the Israeli occupation in Palestine.

Joshua Anderson, Perry junior and president of Voices for Palestine, said the group would hold two sessions of a multimedia workshop called “Enter the Intifada: Colonization & Resistance from California to Palestine.” The workshops coincide with events held Thursday at Haskell Indian Nations University.

“Take a Stance” will end Thursday night with a screening of the grassroots documentary “Slingshot Hip-Hop,” which was a 2008 Sundance Film Festival Selection.

The film follows young Palestinians living in the West Bank, Gaza and inside Israel as they discover hip-hop and use it to overcome challenges of occupation and poverty.

“We hope that the film and the activists giving the presentations will give people an idea of the positive resistance to the occupation that takes place all across Palestine on a daily basis,” Anderson said.

Hip-Hop Indigenous Peoples Project, a student group at Haskell, is helping put on “Take a Stance.”

The workshops today and Thursday include hip-hop videos and lyrics, theater exercises, discussion, digital stories and documentary footage.

“Take a Stance” will also include a performance by Savage Family, a politically conscious hip-hop group. The group will perform Thursday at 5 p.m. at Haskell’s Stidham Union.

“‘Take a Stance’ provides the opportunity for dialogue and learning about a topic that greatly affects the United States and indigenous nations, and certainly one in which the U.S. plays a great deal of influence,” said Julia Good Fox, founder of HIP.

Fox, a faculty member at Haskell, said she founded HIP after she returned from a 2008 trip to Israel. She said the mission of the group was to strengthen and develop a bond between indigenous and Palestinian peoples through socially conscious hip-hop and related artistic and educational media.

“We also want to highlight the issues of human rights and sovereignty in the two regions while promoting artistic, intelligent, creative and educational solutions to the challenges that confront the ideas of dignity and self-determination with regards to a peoples’ right to their land,” Fox said.

Melissa Franklin, Haskell junior and American Indian Studies major, has been with HIP since January and is coordinating the events.

Franklin said the events that were taking place in Palestine and Israel had parallels to what happened to the American Indians in the U.S.

“This is a solution-based event that provides a positive message of survival,” Franklin said. “It has been an honor to coordinate such a big project and I just hope to take away a better understanding of the struggles of Palestinian peoples and witness their personal survival and perseverance through such atrocities.”

Ora Wise, associate producer of “Slingshot Hip-Hop,” contacted Fox last fall about collaborating on “Take a Stance” and will be a guest speaker at the event.

Wise currently works as education director for the Palestine Education Project to develop curriculum materials for using the film in youth organizing and education.

The Palestine Education Project was created to engage students in critical thinking about the culture, history and current living conditions of Palestinians and Israelis.

“We are coming to KU and Haskell to connect with indigenous students and their allies in order to build partnerships between those struggling for self-determination and land sovereignty in this country and in Palestine,” Wise said.

Anderson founded Voices for Palestine in the spring of 2008. He said he started the group to do something about the Israeli occupation in which people were killed or forced to live in despair. Anderson said he called the group Voices for Palestine because of the lack of voices speaking out on behalf of Palestinians.

“Our aim is to present a side of the narrative that isn’t present in the media in the U.S. and let the people make up their own minds,” Anderson said.

— — Edited by Brandy Entsminger