Founded in 1994, the A.M. QATTAN FOUNDATION is a UK-registered charity with offices in London, Ramallah and Gaza City. Through its work Palestine and UK, it seeks to invest in people and to provide a fertile cultural soil upon which they can build their lives in order to achieve an effective, meaningful and lasting participation in various aspects of human endeavor. The Foundation has chosen to focus on two principal areas, culture and education, which it considers as central to any long-term and consistent process of human development. Hence, it established the Qattam Centre for Educational Research and Development in order to actively participate in raising the standards of education and teaching in Palestine and the Qattam Centre for Child in Gaza City, in order to compensate for the lack of incentives and opportunities open to children at school and elsewhere. Moreover the Foundation has just established a new exhibition space in Central London and another one it’s supposed to open by the end of 2011 in Ramallah.
In order to promote excellence and creativity in the arts and sciences, the A.M. Qattan Foundation also launched since September 1999 a special grants and prizes program.
The Program offers incentives to artists and creators to develop their skills and it is based on the following general parameters:

a) Excellence and seriousness;
b) Originality, novelty and creativity;
c) An equal opportunities policy based on non-discrimination according to sex, religion or political affiliation;
d) The effect of the project in raising the standard of the beneficiaries’ level of technical know-how and skill;
e) The effect of introducing Palestinian and Arab societies to cultural and educational issues in other countries of the world, and introducing the peoples of other countries to our own culture;
f) The effect of strengthening the cultural relations between Palestinians and the rest of the Arab world, as well as strengthening the relations between those Palestinians living in Palestine and those in the Diaspora

The program fields are reviewed on a yearly basis. This process is undertaken in consultation with experts in the various fields covered by the Program, both in and outside Palestine, and the new program document for 2009 will be announced in the autumn.
Program’s details for 2008 are available on the website: http://www.qattanfoundation.org/pdf/1953_33.pdf
In alternative is possible to contact the responsible, Mrs Nisreen Naffaa on nisreen@qattanfoundation.org or calling on +972 2 296 05 44.