70 participants from 11 countries end the Olive Picking Program, 14-23 October

Category: Olive picking program Created: 23 October 2017

See many more photos of the Program

picking2017 t1

Picking2017 t2Lasted from the 14th to the 23rd of October 2017, 70 participants from the countries of Belgium, France, Germany, Ireland, Korea, Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, UK, USA and Palestine have ended the Olive Picking Program.

The participants were divided into two groups who picked olives at 10 threatened fields, in the villages and towns of Wad Fukin, Al-Makhrour in Beit Jala, Al-Walaja, Al-Khader, Nahhalin and Beit Sahour. The fields are subjected to settlers' attacked, harassment to the farmers, and/or part of Israeli colonies or the apartheid wall are constructed on part of or adjacent to.

Picking2017 2 t3Internationals also provided protective presence to the farmers and their families, heard about the stories of the villages, fields and families by the JAI team on the way to the field and by the farmers and their families, whom they interacted with and took pictures, to take with them back to their countries and communities.

The program also included guided tours in Bethlehem were they witnesses the wall, settlements and inside refugee camps; And East Jerusalem and Israeli settlers' colonization of the old city, around Jerusalem by Israeli human right organization, with visits to the YMCA and YWCA headquarters; Hebron old city, Shuhada streets with closures and checkpoints and colonies.

Picking2017 2 t4Visits also were organized to and inside the Palestinian Museum of Natural History with a historic presentation by Prof. Mazen Qumsieh, inside the Church of Nativity, and to Al-Badawi 5,500 years old olive tree in Bethlehem; The Ibrahimi Mosque, and into a glass factory and the koufiyye factory in Hebron.
Presentations and sessions were organization during the program on the ongoing displacement of Palestinian and Right of Return by Badil, Geopolitical Presentation by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in the oPt (UN OCHA).

Evening sessions were also organized on Kairos Palestine, the Boycott-Divestment-Sanctions (BDS) Campaign, the Palestinian Children Prisoners in the Israeli jails by DCI-Palestine, political analysis at the AIC, screening of the movie "The Wanted 18", beside a Folklore Dance (Dabka) show on the last evening.