Tubas

Alongside working in WCLAC's office, we had the chance to visit different women’s centres around the West Bank. 

Meeting the children

Our first Health Ed and English lessons with Tubas Charitable Society was planned on Monday in 2 villages near to Tubas. However, due to the fact that we had to change routes to go to Tubas through Nablus, we were 15 minutes late and we were told by Ikram – the international relations officer at TCS – that it would be too late to catch up with the rest of the group in one of the 2 villages.

The workshop in the other village was cancelled due to the death of two young children who had drowned recently due to improper safety regulations in the area and the whole village was in mourning. This is one example of how the West Bank is lacking in capitals to develop its land and protect its citizens, especially the young and delicate.

Despite the distressingly upsetting news of the events we had to swiftly move on to proceeding with our meeting with the local school head teacher where we have now arranged to start giving English and Health lessons to the pupils and possibly the teachers. The first of this set to proceed on 14 May  for 8^th and 9^th graders. We will also be helping with the opening ceremony next week for the renovated museum/workshop for embroidery, including creating a gallery of before and after photographs, to help promote the accomplishments and the successes made so far by TCS and to reflect this to sponsors.

The TCS have been working on getting funds to renovate some old houses, but the problem wasn’t only in finding sponsors but also arranging agreements from the owners of the house who were displaced by the occupation.

We will also be preparing a plan for creating a website (such as Etsy) to promote and sell the products made by local women and to translate their Facebook newsfeed to create a more profound social media presence. 

The Ottoman architecture in Tubas

After the meetings we got the opportunity to walk around the old city and witnessed the ruins of the Ottoman rule from the architecture. As pleasant as this walk was, it reminded us that you could never really forget about the military presence in the area even while focusing on community development and sustaining growth. Walking back to the main road we could hear the loud thumps from a military training session near by echoing through the mountains surrounding the village.