Looking forward to the youth visit

The applications for the Palestinian young people's places on the youth visit in June closed today - From London, we don't know how many there were in the end, but already there were a lot! People who applied are now invited to a week of preparation sessions and the selection will be made after that. GOOD LUCK EVERYONE.

In London, there's a bit more time - There will be a meeting on 23rd April for the young people hoping to take part. But already the helpers are beginning to get organised. A meeting with the drama workshop leaders tomorrow....

Pictures Speaks better than words (collections of pics in different places through our visit to the UK)

At BBC Northampton where we did an interview about our Visit   

A group photo (we're missing a few girls though) ... we enjoyed our time up the hill where we had a great view of London  

Dalia and Samar from the green team 

Rama 

Aya Ab & Hanadi 

Aya Omar 

Shahd Going through pictures 

from our event in llandlious 

Back in Jerusalem ... With lots of memories in mind (Blue team)

we are home now .......
Despite all the ups and downs we had it was truly a journey to remember ...
From wales - llandelious -Northampton to London .
with each family we stayed with .. and each experience we had and every place we visited we enjoyed our time to the fullest.
we had the chance to tell our stories .. share our daily lives and the simple situations we face everyday and tell the people all around England that no matter what the occupation tries to do and force the hardest things on us we still live and accomplish so much in our lives
i learned so much in this trip and one thing i can say for sure is that " there is no strength without challenges"
we learned to balance the lives in the present ... and whenever we feel the earth moving we'll bring ourselves back to now .
and we taught the people to listen to the Palestinian lives from them not what the media wants them to Hear ....
we are just like anyone else in this word ..... we live .. we love ... we laugh ... we learn ... we teach .. we accomplish and we succeeded

England was Great.... and we thank CADFA FOR Giving us the opportunity to be part of the journey .

.... Aya Abdallah Abassi (Blue team leader )
more pictures will be posted ....  

Red group traveling around Britain

Saturday 14th March

 We are spending the first weekend of the women’s visit in a house, just for us, in North Wales. Saturday was supposed to be the British day, which includes presentations of British people and lots of British delicious food.

We started our day with a breakfast made by Anika and the yellow group. After that we had a meeting with all of the groups and we welcomed three new young women from UK.

THE FUN BEGAIN 

 A music session for all of us was set when our Musician camilia gave us some activities and practic to do .. we played sang and enjoyed our time.

Sunday 15th March - Palestinian Day

The day started with Palestinian Breakfast and went on with the  traditional Palestinian dish Magluba (Up site down). You can see, foot was quite important in the Residential. But more important were the stories of the young women from Palestine. Every single women has her own individual story to tell from Palestine. Israah touched me the most with her talk about the refugee Qalandia.  We spend the day with walks outside and dance and singing parties in the evening.

lovely nature in Wales

British lunch

Ti Chi with Anika in the residential

Blackburn 

Lina

We have a really good time with really good people and we went to events and we  succeeded to share our experience and talk to the people.

Sima

Being two days in blackburn was like being in heaven. the people were extremely nice and friendly. we went to several places, and met with many people. we have been to many events. the events were very interesting, we were able to deliver our message through our presentations. people were interested in our talk and they asked many questions, and we answered them all. we were able to make an event in lancaster university, a mosque, and in some community centers in Blackburn. 

Dunja

I am currently sitting in the train. I am writing now, because I really want to share my great experience  in Blackburn and the last to days were to busy. We had no time at all.

The welcoming was so lovely. They organized a party with lots of food, British and Palestinian decoration, music and many nice people. After that we went to the town hall and we were welcomed by a women, who is part of the blackburn parliament. After this we went to a Cathedrial. I was really surprised about a women who works in this cathedral. Muslims and Christins are working together in Blackburn. I loved this.  In the evening we had a talk in a University and after this we went to a Pakistani restaurant and enjoyed our selves. 

Lama 

As we hear from people we know that the british people is cold or do not have emotional feeling. But I am sure that anyone will live our experience will realize thats not true we really felt like we are in our home with our family at blackburn. People there are very friendly and close to us the events was more than good because everybody there was very excited to know more about Palestine and they are very supportive to us, their support raised our motivation to share our stories and answer their questions. 

What shocked me, when a woman came and start crying and talking about what she saw on t.v. and about the crimes that Israel did in Gaza and Jerusalem. She gave me the feeling to say alhamdullela theres a good people in this world know the intensity  of suffering we live. 

We got lots of presents - this was my favorite one

We were welcomed really nice by lots of women

Sima explains the ID System to lists of women

Blackburn Town Hall 

Muslims and Christians working together in the Blackburn Cathedral

Worcester

Sima

Reuniting with the yellow group was really fun. Our stay was very comfortable . We went to the cathedral , and to a women center. We met with very nice people , shared our stories and performed songs. we also learned some english songs and sang with a group of people. 

Dunja

We were welcome with a nice lunch and after this we had a singing workshop with people from Worcester. We sang British and palestinian songs. In the evening we had an event. Lots of people came to listen. Me and Sima mad an order about the talks and outcome was so nice. Worcester is twinned to Khan Younis. I have family Khan Younis and I visited them several times. I mad a Presentation about my time there and I was very happy to share my experience and to show that people not just suffer in Gaza. They also enjoy them selves and can still have a happy life.

Lama 

Music music and music .. thats all what we did in Worcester from the first we arrived .. after going to that beautiful house with the other group. We learned english music played and sang with a musician .. sharing our stories our songs with lovely people.

Bye Bye Worcester

we learned lots of english songs

Hackney twinning with Palestine

Hackney event - Lots of pictures below!

On Saturday 21st March, the Kingshold Community Hall in Hackney was covered in balloons, flag, cupcakes and decorations to welcome eight of the fifteen young women visitors from Palestine who were part of CADFA’s Twinning in Action project and the tenth annual CADFA women's visit to Britain.

 

Old friends: as a CADFA volunteer in Palestine for three months two years ago, Sarah (on right) stayed with Shorouq in Beit Sourik when visiting the village to send back news for the Hackney-Beit Sourik group. They were very happy to meet up again on 21st March! 

One of the visitors was Shorouq Darbadran from Beit Sourik, whose village has had an informal friendship relation with people in Hackney for the past ten years.  This has involved visits in both directions  since the first group from Hackney visited Beit Sourik in 2006 and, with the help of the charity CADFA, several Beit Sourik visitors have come to Hackney schools, colleges and organisations over the years.

Shorouq spoke of the human rights problems faced by her village as Israeli settlements extend and as people are limited in their right to travel by tunnel access roads, checkpoints and the Israeli Separation Wall. She called for the renewal and strengthening of the grassroots twinning link with Hackney and said how much it would mean to people there.

Another visitor was Shahd Hindi, whose family were pushed from their village near Haifa by Zionists wanting to take the land in 1948 . Their family like thousands of others have been refugees ever since, and now live in Jenin refugee camp where as a little girl  Shahd (now 22) witnessed the horrors of the Israeli invasion of 2002 when the Israeli army invaded and flattened much of the camp, killing dozens.  If her family were allowed back home - as international law says they should be - she would have been in her twin town in Hackney, as Hackney Council has for some years had a formal twinning to Haifa.

As well as the food, raffle and celebrations, the evening focused on twinning initiatives. Baroness Ece of Hackney opened the meeting. She said that the recent parliamentary debate calling for recognition of a Palestinian state was a dramatic development and followed a sea-change of public opinion about Palestine.  Nandita Dowson, Director of CADFA, talked of the many visits and volunteering opportunities organised by the charity,  linking people in Britain and Palestine together and showing the power of personal links in raising awareness of human rights. 

 

Several Hackney councillors had expressed interest in the meeting. Councillor Dawood Akhoon attended the meeting and said he was very interested in Hackney having a formal twin in Palestine - perhaps Beit Sourik because of the links that had already been made.

 

Teena Lashmore, a parliamentary candidate in nearby Waltham Forest, was also present. After the meeting she tweeted..."Great day with @camdenabudis The seeds of twinning Hackney with Beit Sourik in Palestine. Lets make it happen! pic.twitter.com/bfRi3o1SyL "

The women visitors had spent ten days in Britain together with young women from Palestine as part of the CADFA visit funded by Erasmus Plus (European funding) . CADFA has brought other visitors from Palestine to Hackney during the past year - in October, a group of schoolboys visited the council; in February, university students from Palestine stayed in the borough and visited Hackney College. In June, look out for the next Palestinian visit, which will be school students, visiting local schools.

 

 

A page from the Hackney-Beit Sourik blog shows a young woman from Beit Sourik who visited Hackney in 2014.

 

CADFA volunteer putting the final touches to the cupcake stall before the event began

Baroness Merel Ece of Hackney speaking at the event

Palestinian visitors in front of a small-scale version of the Israeli Separation Wall, made by CADFA volunteers

 

 

In a previous CADFA women's visit, Fatima from Beit Sourik (right) tells the story of how her nose was broken by a blow by an Israeli soldier when she was seven; an English participant listens intensely

Some of the Hackney helpers who made the evening happen

 

The wiomen's visit in the papers

Here, Camden, Worcester, Islington, Lancaster... They were also on the radio in Northampton and Worcester. More to come, please send in what you have!