Palestine: the things you don’t hear about

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Palestinian Women: Runners, Mothers and Breadwinners

...In Summer 2014, Shawqia took a loan from FATEN in order to develop the agriculturally rich land around her home. With the care and tenderness of a mother, she took me for a tour of her hip-height bean plants, a nursery of herbs peeking through the ground, baby fig and olive trees. Over a cup of the most amazing tea I’ve ever tasted (which I am told, is a due to the well-water stored under the home), she told me how she grows almost everything that her family eats and sells any extra, essentially eliminating the need to go to the mini market.

As she lovingly stroked her budding olive tree, she told me how her two sons (who married two sisters!), helped her to plant the fields. Now that everything is in bloom, she is very content spending her days tending her land alone. Hands don’t lie: This is a woman who is no stranger to hard work.

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KIVA is an NGO microloan program that is quite successful. They loan to women primarily because women are more likely to invest it into enterprises to help their families.
"To help their families." That is seeking their own. People who do that will not have the bond of perfectness in them.
 
First Palestinian animal welfare organisation aims to “cut the cycle of violence”


First Palestinian animal welfare organisation aims to “cut the cycle of violence”


Ramallah - The idea for the Palestine Animal League (PAL), the only locally-run animal welfare organisation in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, founded in 2011, was first conceived when Ahmad Safi was working on a children’s summer camp. Ahmad, PAL's founder and executive director, saw a child sitting alone and throwing stones at a cat. He approached the boy and questioned his actions.

The boy told him that during the night, Israeli soldiers had entered his house, beaten and abducted his brother. At this moment, Ahmad saw in the boy a younger version of himself, and realised that it constitutes an important and ubiquitous problem in Palestine.

“I started thinking about how this happens. We [Palestinians] normalise violence. This is how we survive here. If you are frustrated or abused, it is normal. You have to deal with it,” Ahmad said.

In the hierarchy of violence, Ahmad believes it is often the animals that bear the brunt, as the weaker beings on which even children can vent their frustration and aggression. Ahmad thus began working with children in Jalazone refugee camp on how to deal with day-to-day life under occupation, anger management and animal welfare.

“We tried to cut the cycle of violence, to teach children how to be responsible for themselves and for weaker members of society,” he said.

“Palestine is everything, not only the human beings. Palestine is the earth, the trees, the animals,” Ahmad added. Together with his friend and co-founder, Sameh Arekat, he tried to promote these values, as well as teaching the children that being kind is not a sign of weakness, while hurting animals is not a symbol of strength, “because this is the culture that we grow up with”.
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Muslims would not even think of posing like this with a black dog. Muslims think a black dog is evil. Angels fell, Muslims. There would be no death had no angels fallen.
 

"We're Not White" - a film by Amer Zahr​




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