See more photos of the trip
A program in Palestine, from the 1st to the 10th of March 2018, was organized and hosted for a group of 22 Norwegian students, plus 2 teachers, from a partner YMCA-YWCA Norway related Nord-Norge Folkehøgskolen.
Their program included two olive trees planting days at Israeli-threatened Palestinian fields, guided tours to witness the wall-settlement-settlers bypass roads in Bethlehem, inside the old city of Hebron with the Israeli closures-settlements-closed Shuhada Street, inside Dhaisha refugee camp in Bethlehem, and with the Israeli Committee Against House Demolition (ICAHD) Israeli activist in Jerusalem.
It also included guided visits and tours into the Church of Nativity, Baptism site and Mount of Temptation in Jericho, and old city of Jerusalem. Visits and tours were also paid to the EJ YMCA Vocational Training Center and the YWCA kindergarten and center in Jericho, as well as the village on Nabi Saleh near Ramallah, where they met the Tamimi family and got introduced to the popular resistance committee and activities.
Presentations were made to the students about the JAI work, Olive Tree Campaign, Boycott-Divestment-Sanctions (BDS) Campaign by the BDS National Coalition, Palestinian Christians and Kairos Palestine, geopolitical situation in Hebron by the Temporarily International Presence in Hebron (TIPH), and about the ongoing displacement and refugees issue by Badil Center.
This is the first trip and activity of the school with the JAI, as it was recently started being related to the YMCA-YWCA Norway. Hence, future development of relationship and partnership were discussed, with the advocacy activities and campaigns the students could join or do in Norway.