MIFTAH
Friday, 29 March. 2024
 
Your Key to Palestine
The Palestinian Initiatives for The Promotoion of Global Dialogue and Democracy
 
 
 

Ramallah – A group of women leaders from grassroots organizations in Jericho and the Jordan Valley and from the Ramallah district recently conducted an exchange organized by MIFTAH to two women-leading civil society organizations in the Hebron area. The visit was part of the organization’s program to promote community participation through its AMAL Project, which aims to support women’s transformative leadership in changing times. MIFTAH is implementing the project in partnership with the Women’s Affairs Center, The Women’s Center for Legal and Social Counseling, The Association of Palestinian Working Women for Development, in addition to OXFAM- NOVIB and with funding from SIDA.

Abeer Zaghari: Our goal was for the women to gain experience

MIFTAH’s project coordinator Abeer Zaghari said the exchange visit came after training held by the organization with grassroots organizations in the Jordan Valley on participatory skills, negotiating and advocacy. She said 20 women activists participated from the Jericho and Jordan Valley areas in addition to villages west of Ramallah. The visit included two local organizations: the Association of Women’s Activity and the Women’s Center for Legal and Social Counseling. The goal was to exchange expertise and learn about the experiences of these two organizations and their role in community service, for women in particular. This includes encouraging them to be more independent and self-reliant, to develop their leadership skills, to support them in developing their grassroots organizations and in taking the initiative in community work, in addition to taking on an active and vital role in their communities.

Zaghari said the participants listened to presentations by Maysoun Qawasmi, head of the Women’s Activities Association and attorney for the Center for Legal and Social Counseling, Salwa Banoura, who both gave an overview of their centers’ work and the obstacles the organizations were able to overcome in addition to ways of benefiting from their experiences.

Najat Rmeiliyeh

Najat Rmeiliyeh, who sits at the head of two associations in Jericho, said the exchange visit to Hebron was very informative. “What we heard from the two centers motivated us and encouraged us to further develop and revive the role of our organizations,”she said. She went on to say that the women gained knowledge and expertise on sound management and how to overcome certain problems, such as debts.

Aysheh Ibrahim:

Aysheh Ibrahim is a member of the Diyouk Cooperative and the Diyouk and Nuweimeh Charitable Society in addition to being a community activist. She said the visit gave her the chance to listen to the experiences of these centers and therefore build on their successes. “We can now work on restructuring our own organizations on sound bases and build a future of success,” she said.

Maysoun Qawasmi:

President of the Association of Women’s Activity in Hebron, Maysoun Qawasmi said the most important thing such visits provide is the exchange of experiences and expertise. She continued that they reflected the reality of real success stories, offered networking between the organizations and built relationships. Qawasmi also pointed out that these visits showed how the challenges faced by Palestinian women are more or less the same, thus helping the women to break down barriers between them and change stereotypes they may previously have had.

Qawasmi went on to say that the visit was extremely vibrant and portrayed a very positive picture of women’s activism, proving that they were ready and able to confront and overcome any obstacle or challenge they might face. She used the experience of her own organization to prove her point. “We were up to our ears in debt at one point, but we were able to get rid of it all through tapping into certain available resources.”

 
 
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