A little while ago my friend asked me to give a more detailed outline of what Wi'am does. I am going to try and do that here. I hope to put together at accurate representation of the organization that I am working with right now, but these are my own opinions.
The two things that you need to know to understand Wi'am: role and context.
Wi'am is firmly planted within the role of a grassroots organization. This means that Wi'am works with local people and other small scale organizations. The metaphor of a triangle is useful here (I am stealing this metaphor from John Paul Lederach) and it fits our society's style of hierarchy. At the top of the triangle are Presidents and Prime Ministers. They have the power to get the official deals done, but they are often constrained by intense pressure from the media, the international community and their constituents. They are not able to take risks or even deviate from what their populations expect them to do. In the middle of the triangle are the other important leaders of a society, such as the religious, scientific or economic leaders. These people have the power to influence both the upper and bottom levels of the triangle, but while they often have an interest in peace, they do not have the same need that the masses do nor the pressure of the official leaders. At the bottom of the triangle - the largest section - is the grassroots leaders such as the small organizations or the leaders of clubs, groups or unions. This group is primarily concerned with the daily needs of its members. This concern is often their mantra for peace because there is little time to be spent debating the universalism of peace.
Within this triangle, there are two major forms of motion. Vertical motion is the culture within a particular society. Considering that we are looking at peace, it is the idea that either a culture of peace or a culture of violence (most likely something between the two) is present within the society. As the society reacts to the conflict, the culture can change from the bottom up, or from the top down. Messages of hate or peace can be professed from the leadership downwards or fostered from the grassroots upwards, just as concrete activities will influence the culture. The other type of motion is horizontal motion. This is the idea that because they are in a conflict, each society is engaged in a complex reaction with the other. Positive horizontal motion - if you are trying to create peace - would be formal or informal meetings between the two people groups. This is mostly easily done in the middle section of triangle, the section that is often called civil society, but it happens at all levels. This type of motion is most commonly enacted to create a common understanding between the two people, but it is also done to identify useful strategies to pressuring other parts of the society towards peace.
Being on the bottom of the triangle means that Wi'am is strongly teathered to its context. While it does meet with other organizations, including some Israeli ones, it knows that it's place is with the people.The context of Wi'am is one that is not easy to begin to understand. The suffering and steadfastness of the Palestinian people is quite remarkable. This steadfastness is not without its limits though, and because of this, Wi'am must be very reactionary to its context.
I would say that almost 90% of Wi'am work is reaction to issues that arise from displaced anger and various forms of oppression. When people cannot determine their own future, have no concrete securities for their basic needs, live under threat of physical and structural violence and live within a physiological prison created by a very real 10 metre high wall, it is not uncommon to have unusually high rates of domestic abuse, depression and internal violence. Wi'am's programs are largely centered around trying to make Bethlehem a more livable place. Mediation, a children's summer camp (with aspects of trauma healing), job creation and empowerment for women, and a youth group that promotes nonviolent resistance are their core activities. The only activity that you could argue is not directly reactionary is raising awareness, which is done through hosting groups and international volunteers.
Essentially, Wi'am is an institution that should not need to exist. It is not providing any essential aspects of a society that would not already be present or given if the society is healthy. And yet, it has been open for the last 16 years.
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