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Ex-University of Northern Iowa Administrator Broadcasts for Vatican TV

Posted on: Wednesday, 28 December 2005, 21:00 CST

By Pat Kinney, Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier, Iowa

Dec. 27--CEDAR FALLS --- A retired University of Northern Iowa administrator has been selected to work for a Vatican television station broadcasting from Bethlehem in the Israeli-occupied West Bank of Palestine.

Germana Nijim of Cedar Falls, former UNI international services director, will join a communications center in Bethlehem sponsored by the Vatican's Telepace network. She will assist a crew that will be doing network telecasts from Bethlehem.

According to its Web site, Telepace, a satellite network, is the first and longest running full time Catholic channel, founded in 1977 and developed by Pope John Paul II.

"It is the first time it has had a presence in the occupied territories" of Palestine, said Nijim, and its presence in Bethlehem has been supported by Pope Benedict XVI.

She will leave Thursday and work there for three months. It will be Nijim's fifth trip to Palestine and Israel in five years. She has previously visited there with various peace and justice groups. She is the widow of Basheer K. Nijim, the Palestinian-born longtime head of UNI's geography department.

Nijim said she was picked for the Telepace job on a visit to her native Italy earlier this year. "People who know me, and knew I had done volunteer work, mentioned my name" to the Rev. Sergio Marcazzani of Telepace. "He said, 'I really need a translator, someone who can speak English and run the computer, sending messages' " Nijim is proficient at both.

"I really think it's a sign of divine providence. I'm so happy," Nijim said. "He (Marcazzani) asked me if I would join his team. I gladly accepted.

"I will probably be living in a room in a convent" in Bethlehem. "That sounds very nice. When I was a kid I used to dream of becoming a nun. In my old age, I'm getting part of my wish," she said, laughing.

Telepace "is struggling to get organized" in Bethlehem, Nijim said. Its efforts are made more difficult because of a gated wall surrounding the city, under the surveillance of Israeli security forces.

"It's really an open air prison where people are totally encircled. It's an outrage," she said. "We cannot have this in the 21st century."

Still she said, the crew has been able to visit other parts of the occupied Palestinian territories, including the city of Jenin, and the Gaza Strip between Egypt and Israel on the Sinai Peninsula.

"It's really an honor" to be selected for the Telepace crew, she said, because of her "passion for giving oppressed peoples the same rights we want for ourselves.

"There is never going to be peace until there is peace and justice for Israel and peace and justice for Palestine," Nijim said. "Both peoples have to have freedom and human rights or there is never going to be peace."

Nijim has two grown sons living in Chicago. After returning for a son's wedding in the spring, she plans to return to the Middle East in the fall.

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Copyright (c) 2005, Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier, Iowa

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Source: Waterloo Courier

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