Ahali has successfully captured its place in
organizing and assisting various sectors and members in the
Palestinian Community in Israel, the ultimate goal for its
establishment. Five years of experience in the field and
working with and for the members of the Palestinian community
in Israel, Ahali has gained the experience in very challenging
and destitute sectors which are the Arab farmers and the Arab
rural women. We are delighted to introduce for you our
programs and activities in this special annual review that is
published only this time in a form to cover the period of 2004
- 2005.
Arab Farmers Project in 2004
2. The Arab Farmers' Organization
In 2003 the Project initiated the first steps in the creation of the
first Arab Farmers Organization in Israel (you can read the previous
annual reports in our website: www.ahalicenter.org). The Organization
was registered with the Registrar of Cooperative Societies as an
Agricultural Cooperative. Its constitution includes the organization's
goals, conditions for membership, its institutions and their functions
and activities. The key goals were noted as the creation of a strong
Palestinian agricultural lobby that could pave the way for appropriate
and authentic representation of Palestinian farmers in Israel. The
lobby should be able to achieve an improvement of the human, civil,
social, economic and organizational rights of their members, and stop
discrimination against them, for example in cases of land confiscation
official resources allocation.
In 2004 the project concentrated on increasing the number of members.
At the end of the year the number of members reached 600 private
farmers and 15 cooperatives with a total of 700 farmers. The project do
assist the organization, by organizing the general elections of the 45
members of the Organization Council and to elect a board of nine
directors for a 4-year term, a monitoring and control committee of five
members, as well as eight professional committees coordinators. The
elections were conducted in four regional meetings in a fully
democratic manner according to the charter of the organization and its
regulations. It is notable that this is the first time in the entire
history that Palestinian farmers in Israel have established their own
representative organization, and that authentic, democratically elected
representatives are managing it and acting on behave of the members'
situation and their rights. Following the establishment of the Arab
Farmers Organization a period of very intensive guidance and training
of the key elected officials took place. Their training began in 2004
and is planned to continue at least for four or five years so that they,
and others who come after them, learn the basics of public service and
understand the true meaning of serving the broad members.
One of the important events organized in 2004 was the First
Palestinian Farmers' Conference in Israel. It was held in the city of
Kalansawa in the Triangle on 23 December 2004, attended by 600 farmers,
consisted significant number women. The purpose of the conference was
to prove to the farmers and their non-member neighbors that they have
the strength to organize themselves and to work collectively to
preserve their rights. It was also important for individual farmers to
realize that they belong to a large and organized body that will act on
their behalf and protect their interests. In addition to the
achievement of these two main goals, the opportunity was used to
conduct an in-depth discussion with senior officials of the Ministry of
Agriculture and Rural Development and other relevant institutions that
were represented at the conference. The discussed subject was the state
and development of Arab agriculture in Israel and means to improve it
through active involvement in the development of the agricultural
sector. Also present at the conference were Arab members of the Knesset
(Israel's parliament), the chairman of the Oversight Committee of the
Arab Sector, which monitors actions and decisions of the Government of
Israel to guard Arab interests, delegations of Palestinian farmers from
the Occupied Territories, and PARC (Palestinian Agricultural Relief
Committees) among others. The photograph below offers an impression of
the festive atmosphere of the conference.
Participants of the First Conference of Arab
Farmers in Israel - Kalansawa, December 23, 2004.
3. Equal Opportunities for Women in Agriculture
This project is conducted as part of the Arab
Farmers Project. The main goal of this project is to strengthen the
status of rural women and improve their socio-, economic and political
conditions within the community and to increase their involvement in
community affairs and activities. To this purpose the project
management set out an implementation policy based on the following:
Improving the efficiency
and effectiveness of existing institutions in the villages to reach
as many women as possible, ensure continuity and sustainability of
the activities developed and to broaden their circle of
influence.
Improvement of women's
status will be based on activities that combine social and economic
empowerment and capacity building within the village. This approach
is based on proven findings that there is definite synergy between
the two components: together they bring about desirable practical
results and create challenges for the women within their communities.
Creation of local social
frameworks for women's groups and linking them to a broader, country
wide framework that offers them a feeling of belonging among women
at both levels. This increases the self-confidence of each
individual woman within her own group and of each local group within
the broader regional or national community.
Inclusion of more than
hundred seventy women in all activities of the Arab Farmers' Project
within which a subproject, "Equal Opportunities for Women in
Agriculture" is being conducted. This inclusion is achieved by
enrolling the women as members of the Arab Farmers Organization in
Israel and electing them in the organization's institutions. Their
status within the community will be positively influenced by their
participation together with the men in field trips and professional
activities, as well as conducting field experiments on their land,
using their crops, and by conducting experiments on farms managed by
women.
Exploitation of the
services and the capabilities of Palestinian experts in the
project's social and economic empowerment activities. This increases
the opportunities for Arab experts and contributes to the
development of the new skills of local specialists, both male and
female.
With respect to economic
empowerment, the approached strategy is based on training women in
entrepreneurship and the establishment and development of an
independent business, either individually or cooperatively. The
project provides technical training to the extent that it is
required.
Women from the Maker Group of the Project "Equal Opportunities
for women in Agriculture" in their field.
The year 2004 was the first year in which the project worked
systematically with women. Ten women's groups were formed in ten
villages involving 210 women in the years 2004-2005. Each group
involved 20 - 25 women that are guided by a program which covered the
entire year. The groups received training, lectures and workshops
focusing on social empowerment and economic development. Each group was
trained in a specific economic and business field, according to the
needs and possibilities of each group members. Two groups received
training in the establishment of various types of local businesses; one
group learned the basics of candle manufacturing, two more in the
manufacture of cosmetic and medical creams from indigenous herbs. One
group specialized in agriculture-based businesses while another studied
home food processing, especially of dairy products. Yet another group
developed skills in the preparation of pickles and olive oil products.
Three additional groups were in advanced organizational stages of their
businesses at the end of the reporting year (June 2005), also the end
of the year 2005 involved the project entrance profoundly in the
Triangle Region to establish and organized women's groups in this
region. It is notable that during the first year of the project at
least 25 women established their own independent businesses.
First evaluations of the project approach among rural Arab women
indicate that the participants were very interested in the training
contents and the project activities, and were eager to accept the
offered training and share their experiences with other women. The same,
the external evaluation of the project indicated that the process of
the impact had started to affect the close neighbors of the
participants in the project, and more demand expressed by them.
The Tamara Group maintains the haves they established
them by the assistance of the "Equal Opportunity for Women in
Agriculture"
3. The Arab Farmers' Program
During 2004-2005 the program continued to work on the advancement
and development of agricultural Projects. Some important projects that
were implemented during the year:
Improvement of irrigation efficiency
through utilization of meteorological data - IMIS (Irrigation
Management information System). This is a regional cooperation
project, executed jointly with Palestinians, Jordanians and the U.S.
Department of Agriculture's Agricultural Research Service. During
2004 two meteorological stations were established and two major
experiments were carried out, one on irrigation of cucumbers for
industrial processing and one on almond groves. A third experiment
was conducted on the trellising of industrial cucumbers. The project
will continue till 2007.
Assistance to Palestinian farmers in the
Negev to protect their lands from attempted confiscation by the
government. Part of the project was the distribution of olive
saplings to the Negev farmers for planting on their land.
Palestinian farmers from Israel's Triangle and from the North
assisted with the planting of the olive saplings, as an expression
of their solidarity with the Palestinian farmers of the Negev. The
planting took place on 28th Land Day, on March 30th. About 3500
saplings were distributed and some 80 dunams were planted.
Twenty-five farmers benefited directly from the project. In addition
to the planting, Ahali also assisted in the construction of small
damps to collect floodwaters, which will be used by the plants in
the summer and the autumn.
Marketing of small ruminants' milk and
olive oil as part of the Arab Farmers' Project. In the course of
2004 a local entrepreneur established a dairy with a capacity of
5000 liters per day to receive the milk of sheep and goats of
Palestinian farmers in Israel. It is located in the city of Tamra in
the Western Galilee. The establishment of the diary was made
possible by the intensive involvement of the project's personnel and
their interaction with the Ministry of Agriculture, including
obtaining all necessary permits for the processing and marketing of
milk and milk products. The establishment of dairies of this type is
very important to enable the Palestinian farmers to find a market
outlet for the milk. Finding this outlet is problematic for
Palestinian farmers because the Chief Rabbinate of Israel is not
willing to issue kashrut certificates for milk produced by non-Jews,
and Tnuva, the milk monopoly that handles some 75-85 percent of all
milk marketing, is not willing to cooperate without this kashrut
certificate.
With respect to the marketing of olive oil
little significant progress was achieved in 2004. Although the group
made progress in discussing and developing the project, the official
bodies demonstrated a marked lack of interest in investing in the
subject.
"Biological Control of the Olive Fly"
is another regional cooperation project submitted to MERC (Middle
East Research Cooperation) for financing. Similar to the IMIS
project noted above, it is to be conducted in cooperation with
Palestinians, Jordanians and a team from the USDA/ARS. It has been
approved in principle and implementation now awaits the
authorization of the first allocation of funds.
Development of the rehabilitation project
for the agriculture of Palestinian farmers whose lands remained in
the Occupied Territories to the west of the discrimination wall
built by the Israelis. For this undertaking the project enlisted
Palestinian farmers from Israel who supported and assisted the
farmers of the Occupied Territories to cultivate those lands that
were left on the western side of the barrier. Access to their lands
by the Palestinian owners situated on the eastern side of the fence
depends on obtaining permits from the occupying forces. These
permits are not always available and create extremely inflexible
situations for the landowners. The project also offered support in
obtaining saplings of olive trees for planting, fruits and
vegetables, fertilizers and other agricultural inputs.
In 2004 - 2005, three cooperatives for
farmers had been established by the project. The first includes 25
Arab farmers from Muqueble village in Eben Amer Valley with their
500 dunams of land, the objective of this cooperative is to buy
water from the National Water company "Mikorot", and
supply the Arab Farmers with the water needed for irrigation. The
other two cooperatives had been established in Arabe and Sakhnin
towns, their objective is to organize the farmers who are the owners
of the lands in the flooded area in the Batuf valley, to assist and
support them to lobby in front of the related governmental
institutes for draining these lands and to provide them with the
required amount of water for irrigation.
In addition to the formal projects
mentioned above, the program carried out several outreach activities
including the publication of the bi-monthly Al Muzara magazine for
Palestinian farmers, group workshops, professional tours and others.
Close to 5400 farmers participated and benefited from the project's
training activities. Many of the participants were women who took
part in the project "Equal Opportunities for Women in
Agriculture". Most of the training workshops were organized for
permanent women's groups. We assume that at least 40 percent of the
members of each of these groups took part in more than one activity.
The most important publication issued was the bi-monthly magazine
"Al Muzara" of which 48,000 copies was distributed in
2004-2005 throughout Israel and the Palestinian Authority. In
addition, short publications of one or two pages on technical
subjects were distributed to the farmers.
4. Coalitions, Patnerships and Network
Ahali - Center for Community Development works within a
stretch cooperation with other institutions and organizations, which we
believe can contribute more to the projects and our objectives achievement.
The organizations Ahali work with are:
Palestinian Agricultural Relief Committees
(PARC)
The Palestinian Farmers Union.
Arab Protect the Nature (APN) in Jordan
NCARTT (National Center for Agricultural Research
Technology and Transfer).
Itijah (Union of Arab Community Based Organizations).
Adalah (The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in
Israel).
Sidreh ( a women economic support and development in
the Negev).
Educational Council ( a youth cultural empowerment
organization in the Negev).
Union of Working Palestinian Farmers Committees.
I'lam - Media Center for Arab Palestinians in Israel.
The Galilee Society for Health Research and
Services.
Vulcani Center for Agricultural Researchs, Ministry
of Agriculture and Rural Development.
Extension and Technology Services, Ministry of
Agriculture and Rural Development.
Agricultural Research Services (ARS) of the USDA
Many Municipality Councils in the Palestinian
villages and towns in Israel and many of institutions related to
them.
Palestinian farmers from Israel, visiting a field of
Palestinian farmer from the occupied territories in Nazlet Issa.
5. Ahali Supporting
In the period 2004 - 2005, Ahali - Center for Community development
Budget, was financed by international and local Funds. We would like to
use this opportunity to present our deep appreciations and to thank all
of those organizations and founders, institutions and individuals that
did support Ahali not only in the finance aspects, but with intensive
participation in designing and implementing of the projects and
activities. The most important partners were:
Ford Foundation
The New Israel Fund
CCFD (Catholic Committee against Hunger and for Development)
Church Development Service (Evangelischer Entwicklungsdienst-EED)
Global Ministries
United States Department of Agriculture (USDA)
Welfare Association
Open Society Institute & Soros Foundations Network (OSI)
2003
