Rifat Odeh Kassis

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Rifat Odeh Kassis (Arabic: رفعت عودة قسيس‎) is a Palestinian Christian was born in Beit Sahour, in the West Bank. An active human rights and political and community activist, he was arrested and imprisoned several times by Israel. In 1992 he founded the Palestinian section of the international child rights organization[1], Defence for Children International (DCI) and in 2005 he was elected President of the international movement. In 1995 he helped to establish a rehabilitation programme in Chechnya targeting Chechen children who have been injured and traumatized in the war. In 1996 he left Palestine to work in Central Asia for several years, helping to develop the NGO sector there[2]. In 2000 he came back to Palestine to become the Executive Director of the East Jerusalem YMCA and to run the YMCA/YWCA Joint Advocacy Desk. In 2005 he joined the World Council of Churches (WCC) in Geneva to run the Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine and Israel (EAPPI) [3] He is a cofounder of the Alternative Tourism Group (ATG)[4] He is active on the boards of several different international and local civil society organizations.

He is the author of several articles and in 2006 he published his first book, Palestine: A Bleeding Wound in the World’s Conscience, (ISBN 9950-346-00-2)