RAMALLAH, March 19 (JMCC) - American Steve Sosebee lost his wife and partner last year to cancer.
But his personal quest to live a meaningful life and continue helping Palestinian children has brought him and his two daughters back to the
occupied Palestinian territories, he
tells Gulf News.
In this interview, the founder of the Palestinian Children's Relief Fund is candid about his motivations and the challenges he faces.
I knew even when I was very young that I wanted to live a life like this. I wanted to look back one day and say when I am older — inshallah I will be an old man — [that] I made a difference in [others'] life. That I didn't live just for personal pleasure or to accumulate wealth or something like that, he says.
I wanted to make a difference and I wanted to do it in a way which would help people who are suffering injustice, Sosebee told Weekend Review in an interview during a recent visit to Dubai.
Sosebee's wish has come true. Today he is playing an instrumental role in improving the lives of hundreds of Palestinian children.
Sosebee's story began in the late eighties when he was a journalist with The Washington Report and Middle Eastern Affairs from the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The young American reporter saw a lot of injured children during the first Palestinian intifada (1978 to 1993).
As an American, I felt guilty about what was going on there because of the policies of my government, he says, referring to what most Arabs describe as Washington's biased policies towards Israel.
So I wanted to do something to show the people that not everybody agreed with this policy, and to do it in a positive and humanitarian way, he says.