Friend --

Tonight was to be a night of celebration - a night when our community lifts up what’s best in humanity through the Kahlil Gibran Spirit of Humanity Awards. 

The AAI team would have spent the day finalizing seating, checking the table settings, rehearsing the audio visual presentations, and changing into black-tie attire to welcome our community, friends, and DC policy makers to the premiere Arab American event of the year.

Recognizing the incredible, life-saving work of organizations like UNICEF and UNRWA through the Kahlil Gibran Awards gives us all something to aspire to. Right now, while many of us #StayHomeToSaveLives, UNICEF and UNRWA are providing refugee children with distance learning, protecting children in conflict, and delivering life saving medications to those impacted by COVID19. 

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These organizations are a living representation of the values we celebrate at the Gibran Awards. 2018 Gibran awardee Chef José Andrés and his World Central Kitchen evidence these values through their work feeding those on the frontline and working to solve food distribution problems during this crisis.

If we were together celebrating tonight, Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha would receive the Najeeb Halaby Award for Public Service. We would acknowledge her work exposing the Flint water crisis and her tireless advocacy on behalf of her community’s children. Instead Dr. Mona is home recovering from COVID19 and advocating for plasma donations. 

But we are not celebrating tonight.

Once we saw how COVID19 would endanger our community and our nation, AAI made the difficult and early decision to cancel the Kahlil Gibran Awards. This means AAI’s team is working from home, not in black tie, making sure Arab Americans are counted in the 2020 Census, have the voting information they need, and are able to exercise their civil liberties. 

As our workload has increased with the challenges of COVID19, the virus is also preventing us from raising the critical funding the annual Gibran celebration provides. Funding that allows AAI to continue its work year round.

In the midst of these unpredictable times, there is an opportunity for you to make a difference. Throughout this crisis, AAI will continue to stand for Arab American rights and push back against discriminatory policies that target our community, but we need your help <[link removed]>. So even if you are at home, you can take action by donating to support AAI’s work. 

AAI has always stood for those most vulnerable during difficult times. Can we count on you now? Please donate today <[link removed]> so that together we can protect our rights and liberties. 

Jennifer Salan
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Arab American Institute - 1600 K St NW, #601, Washington, DC 20006, United States
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