PROVINCETOWN - Folk icon headlines international aid benefit

Press Clip Source: Cape Cod Times 
Date: November 30, 2015
Written by: K.C. Myers
Read original article: Here

PROVINCETOWN — The crisis in Syria feels far from the splendor of Land’s End Inn, an icon of eccentric luxury that provides panoramic water views at the Cape’s tip. But on Dec. 4, the owners of the 18-room polygonal guest house will be hosting a fundraiser for an international nonprofit group that helps civilians during violent conflicts.

Peter Yarrow, of Peter, Paul and Mary, will be performing at the event for Nonviolent Peaceforce, which is at work in the Philippines, Myanmar, the South Sudan and Syria. The fundraiser takes place during the townwide festival, Holly Folly.

If you’re wondering why Yarrow and the interests of an international peace group are converging in Provincetown, it’s simple to explain.

Stan and Eva Sikorski, who have owned Land’s End Inn since 2012, have a 25-year-old daughter, Natalie, who works for the Nonviolent Peaceforce in Beirut. She has set up the office and helped develop the program there to assist Syrians living among airstrikes by several countries, including France and the United States, as well as Syria's own civil war.

“It’s very difficult to explain what’s going on in Syria,” Natalie said during an international phone call on Monday.

There are four million Lebanese, she said, and 1.4 million Syrian refugees living in Lebanon. So, from her office in Beirut, headquarters of the Nonviolent Peaceforce’s campaign in Syria, one cannot overstate the dramatic effect of the refugees, she said. Their poverty and discomfort stands in sharp contrast to the rest of the city, an urban, hip mecca not that dissimilar to Williamsburg in Brooklyn.

For the Syrians left in their country, it’s a dire situation of attacks from foreign hands, as well as ambushes by their own government, she said. “They are between a rock and a hard place,” she said. “They are trying to live normal lives in extraordinary circumstances. We’re trying to provide them unarmed protection.”

The Nonviolent Peaceforce has about 210 employees and operates with a $6 million budget globally, said founding director Mel Duncan, who lives in New York City. The Syrian Protection Project has a staff of five, he said, who work with 60 coalitions inside Syria. The project involves teaching nonviolent civilian protection techniques to the local people, Duncan said.

Aside from the violence inside that country, thousands work for peace and get no media attention, Duncan said. “It’s a glimmer in a bleak landscape,” he said. “As more and more bombs rain down on their country from about a half dozen other countries, we rely on the hopes and prayers and aspirations of ordinary people. So we hope a lot of people support us at Holly Folly.”

Stan Sikorski, who lived with his family in Germany and Greece for years while working for Verizon, AT&T, General Motors and Nokia, said he is a bit relieved his daughter’s assignment in Beirut is coming to a close.

The Nonviolent Peaceforce will bring Yarrow to the Sikorskis' inn, where he’ll join a list of celebrities who have previously enjoyed the views, the stained glass windows and Tiffany lamps. These include Robert De Niro, Patrick Deval, Catherine Turner and Quentin Tarantino, Sikorski said. “I’m scared and excited,” he said of the upcoming party.

At the last Holly Folly party at the inn, a fundraiser for the Provincetown Art Association & Museum, he said, 800 people attended. The event will include food, drinks, a silent auction and a dessert table.