The MAIA Mural Brigade (Maia means Water in Arabic), organized by  Break the Silence Mural and Arts Project brings together a national team that includes: activists, trauma therapists, muralists, filmmakers, Estria Foundation Water Writes Project, Olympia-Rafah Solidarity Mural Project and Afaq Jadeeda (New Horizons) to create collaborative murals with Palestinian youth and artists including Mohammad AlDeery and Luai Negim.   The murals are located at schools in the Gaza Strip where water purification systems installed by the Middle East Children’s Alliance are providing clean drinking water to 30,000 children.

The Middle East Children’s Alliance (MECA),  Berkeley CA, has worked for 25 years to provide on-the-ground humanitarian aid to children in the Middle East.  MECA’s MAIA Project was launched in response to a vote by the Student Parliament at the UN Boys’ School in Bureij Refugee Camp, Gaza.  The students were given the opportunity to choose one thing they most wanted for their school: They chose to have clean drinking water. The water crisis in Palestine continues to worsen particularly in Gaza where desalination plants were bombed in Israel’s Operation Cast Lead assault in 2008/2009.

Working in partnership with community organizations in Gaza MECA’s MAIA Project has provided clean water to 14 large UN schools in Palestinian refugee camps and to 13 kindergartens in refugee camps, towns, and villages. The systems are funded by grassroots organizing efforts in the USA.