See more photos and watch a short video of the program
From the 4th to the 12th of November 2014, the JAI has organized a program in Palestine for 16 Norwegian students, with their 2 teachers, from the YMCA-YWCA Norway Rønningen Folkehøgskole.
The program included: briefings / lectures on various topics related to the Palestinian life under occupation and potential international advocacy campaigns. Those included the programs and activities of the YMCA and YWCA in Palestine, the JAI Olive Tree Campaign, Refugees issue and Right of Return, the Boycott-Divestment-Sanctions (BDS) Campaign, Popular Resistance in Palestine, and the situation in Hebron by the TIPH.
It also included guided tours to witness the wall, settlements, bypass roads, checkpoints, closures and land confiscation, as well as a tour in Jerusalem with the Israel Committee Against House Demolition (ICAHD), and the Bethlehem-Jerusalem checkpoint they went through with the EAPPI team. This is beside guided tours to various sites in Bethlehem, Ramallah, Hebron, Jericho and Jerusalem, mainly: the Church of Nativity, Ibrahimi Mosque, Bili'n village, Bethlehem University, Arafat's Tomb, Mount of Temptation, Jericho old city, Bethlehem old city, Hebron old city, including the closed Shuhada Street.
The program also included meetings and chatting with Palestinian youth at the YWCA in Ramallah and Bethlehem University.
The Norwegian students had three half days of helping in olive picking at various threatened fields in Wad Foukin and Teqou' villages in the Bethlehem area, where they met farmers and their families, listened to their stories, the harassments and attacks they get subjected to from the Israeli soldiers and settlers.
Prior to their trip to Palestine, the JAI sent 2 Palestinian youth to their school in Oslo, from the 26th of October to the 3rd of November, who communicated Palestine and presented Israeli measures against Palestinians, as well as their daily life under occupation.