Getting ready for the leaders' visit to Palestine

A year ago, the Twinning in Action project began with a leader's training.  The Palestinian group flew to Newcastle (see picture) before joining the UK group in the Lake District and later London. It was a great start to the first year of this project.

The second leaders' training of the Twinning in Action project will take place in the new year 2016. It will include people from the UK and Palestine who took part in the first one in December 2014, but also some new people.  There will be people from Camden and Abu Dis from our different links groups (working with students, youth and women) and we're also pleased that the group will include people from other places in the UK and Palestine that have twinning partners in the other country or want to make new links. We're looking forward to meeting old friends and new very soon and getting the second main phase of the project under way.

CADFA student visit to Palestine in February.

 Since the CADFA Twinning in Action university students' visit to the UK (February 2015) many new student links have developed. At Goldsmith's College and Leeds University, new twinning links are being proposed with Al Quds University.  Preparations are going ahead for the next CADFA student exchange which will also be part of the Twinning in Action project - this will be a visit to Palestine in February next year and is being organised with the Al Quds University.  In both countries, volunteers have been talking in universities, inviting interest, working on the student blog. The programme is going into place and recently there was a Skype meeting between the two countries. (Pictures show some of the students involved in the student visit to the UK last February; CADFA volunteer speaking at a university; Skype meeting - this is students at Al Quds University photographed from Camden!) 

Twinning in Action autumn update

We're delighted that Erasmus +  have given us the go-ahead to take Twinning in Action groups to Palestine!  

 This has happened at a very difficult time in Palestine, and on the advice of our friends there we have postponed the first of these visits till 2016.  What is happening in Palestine now? See the CADFA statement last week here.

The first of the visits will be a leaders' training in February, and during the next year this will be followed by a visit for university students, a women's visit, a youth visit all to Palestine. Then in September 2016, we will have the final leaders' visit which will review the whole project. Look out for the TWINNING IN ACTION CONFERENCE in September 2016, Details will follow.

In the meantime, our links groups continue to be active.  

WOMEN'S LINKS have started organising a weekly stall at the Brunswick Centre - and also preparing for a women's day during the CADFA teachers' visit to London in January. 

YOUTH LINKS have been protesting against the treatment of young people in Palestine with street activities and letters to MPs and also baking cakes to raise money towards the youth visit 

STUDENT LINKS are having a planning meeting this week on Wednesday 18th November.

TEACHERS' LINKS are building in preparation for our teachers' project starting January - see here.

We really need to strengthen the links between the two countries for each of these. We want to get more of our work on to the blogs! Our new EVS volunteers are helping tackle this in the UK (see their blog here) and we hope that local volunteers in Dar Assadaqa will respond, though we have no EVS volunteers there at present.

If you're reading this, we hope you'll be part of this work - Do contact us at contact@cadfa.org for more information.

Youth links working hard towards the next exchange

The CADFA youth links have been going even stronger since the exchange visit in June. The group is growing a bit all the time. The young people involved are taking part in stalls and demonstrations about the situation of their friends in Palestine at the moment. They are also baking cakes to raise money for their planned exchange in July 2016. GOOD LUCK TO THEM ALL! They are quite inspiring...

Twinning in Action News

The Twinning in Action project is continuing and we are happy as we said in the last post to be able to include the second half of the project (visits to Palestine) after a year of uncertainty.

But there is a grim situation in Palestine at the moment. Our friends in Palestine are receiving horrible news every day. Several students from the Al Quds University have been killed.  And others have been injured or arrested by the Israeli army.  *We are deeply sorry to hear that Nadine's cousin has been killed and send our deepest sympathy to the whole family.*

CADFA in London are busy with letters, petitions, demonstrations etc for human rights and saying....

The next exchange for the Twinning in Action project is the Leaders' visit to Palestine. This was to have been in August but the Erasmus + answer did not come until September. We thought we would run the visit at the end of November but because of events in Palestine now,  it is not a suitable time, so we have set a date early in Februrary, right before the student exchange -  We will keep an eye on the situation of course but we very much hope that this will go ahead.

Sometimes patience wins out... Great when it does!

GREAT NEWS FOR CADFA THIS YEAR!  Our 10^th October birthday celebration will become a big celebration of another CADFA first!  

The whole Twinning in Action programme of twinning exchange visits to Palestine has been agreed by Erasmus + (EU funding).

This is at a time when things are very grim in Palestine and around Jerusalem* - Abu Dis itself is surrounded by extra ‘flying checkpoints’ – news of imprisoned children, shootings and deaths over the past few days. So we will be keeping an eye on the situation before we run the visits of course.

CADFA has heard today that we will be given grant funding this year to run the following exchanges to Palestine: youth leaders’ exchange, a student exchange, a young women’s exchange and a youth exchange! This is in addition to the teachers’ visit to the UK that will take place in January!

Already the CADFA links groups in Camden (women, students, young people) are working hard to build and sustain links between the two countries in order to raise awareness of the lives of Palestinians under Israeli occupation and to encourage people to be active in promoting human rights.

CADFA’s first eleven or so years has been full of firsts – We have built many links, opened many bridges and made difficult projects possible. We have helped dozens of groups to find ‘twins’ in Palestine, taken hundreds of people in each direction to see each other’s lives and helped build friendships of many kinds between the two countries.

CADFA’s long history of exchanges between Britain and Palestine includes exchanges to Palestine such as ‘Stories from our Mothers’ (women) and ‘Palestine in a Week’ (students) as well as three teachers’ exchanges funded by the British Council. Coming to the UK, CADFA has brought four or five exchanges a year in the past few years. 

It has taken a  year for Erasmus + to be able to agree to these new exchanges – which really are a first -  and CADFA are delighted to have this next step in our Twinning in Action project confirmed. Being able to continue with the project will mean that we can involve hundreds more people during the next year in creative projects and activities to promote human rights.

As an organisation concerned with human rights in Palestine, CADFA is aware that the situation is grim at the moment in Palestine. Palestinians are suffering under military occupation – we are hearing that the Israelis are surrounding the  Al Aqsa Mosque with military vehicles today.   We will need to take a view on the safety of each visit that we organise, but we hope to run these exchanges and return each time with a group of visitors who have learned a lot about the reality of the human rights situation there. 

Friends of CADFA are invited to our BIRTHDAY CELEBRATION on 10^th OCTOBER 2015 at St Clement’s Eastcheap where there will be Arabic music and delicious Palestinian food.  Tickets available here and more information on this exciting development will be given then.

Fundraising for the youth visit

The youth links team in the UK are determined to see Palestine themselves even if there is no Erasmus funding - so they are getting going on fundraising to make this possible. Step one is a SPONSORED WALK on 4th October (CADFA's 11th birthday). They will be going from Parli to Parli..More details soon. Their fundraising page is HERE!
(If you have problems using it, please get in touch on contact@cadfa.org)

And here are some of them in the CADFA office yesterday!

*Next steps in Twinning in Action*

CADFA is still hoping that we will be able to complete the project as we had hoped, with a series of return visits to Palestine before our final leaders' exchange visit to the UK and Twinning in Action conference. It's hard now in September 2015 to tell you that we are still waiting for the results of our appeal that we put in in September 2014 - but we think that things are moving on. We will, we hope, tell you soon!

Meanwhile the YOUTH LINKS group in London have met and decided to try and fundraise for a youth links visit to Palestine - hoping that the Erasmus + money will be agreed though - and to take most of a year over it to ensure that at least some of them can go. This is really exciting (see youthcadfa.blogspot.co.uk)

and STUDENT LINKS are getting going for the new year with a meeting on the evening of 24th September

and WOMEN'S LINKS are meeting this evening....

Hope that you will be part of the rest of the project in some way. Keep in touch!

So many links made or strengthened

Time has rushed by since the youth visit and we are still struggling to collect all the many impressions and results - it was a great visit and involved so many people. If you are one of the people who helped us, we are sorry that you might be waiting for a formal THANK YOU - but we want to say thank you!! Without all the helpers, this would have been impossible.

Here are two pictures from two of the youth club visits, to Calthorpe Project and Samuel Lithgow Sports Club, both in Camden. (There are many more to come...)

Our fotocollage

 

Lucy ans Saroirse  created a piece of art yesterday. We remembered all this beautyfull and funny moments with you!!! Hope you like it :)