Our MiniActive project has grown and developed immensely over the past 5 years, but there is so much more to do. We seek to do more, to develop more, to grow more, to help the Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem. So, on Tuesday, December 18, we asked our MiniActive female volunteers to bring families members, neighbors, friends (all women, of course), to hear about the project, and the good it can do for neighborhoods throughout East Jerusalem.
Huge event with lots invested
In all, we had 400 women at the MiniActive offices in Wadi Joz, in a day that was organized entirely by the women. There were speakers and performers of all sorts.
There were speakers of all sorts
One woman spoke about overcoming obstacles in participating in MiniActive. This is definitely a delicate issue, since issues of being in touch with the ‘establishment’ are especially complex in East Jerusalem. However, the results speak for themselves: When streets are cleaner and more complaints are taken care of (now 50% of all requests from the 106 municipal hotline in Arabic are filled, as opposed to 30% only two years ago), and when the women themselves work in groups to advance topics, these obstacles are overcome.
Speaking about experiences in MiniActive
A second woman spoke about her experiences in MiniActive and how it changed her life. She is about 60 years old and had stopped working as a social worker about 10 years ago. Her children had married and were out of the house. She was lonely and depressed. She found MiniActive, and it brought her back to life. She feels that she can now contribute to society. She took part in MiniActive’s training for our Living Safer, Living Longer program that seeks to improve preventive health and home safety, and as a result, has been hired to encourage mothers of young children to immunize their children and to improve home safety.
There were also performances – on the oud
Performing with the oud
Debka dancing
Traditional debka dance
Displays and sales of women’s handicrafts
Women selling traditional handicrafts
From knitting, to ceramics to jewelry.
Lots of different kinds of handicrafts
And after that, everyone was so inspired that 100 new women joined MiniActive.
Here’s to more effective, women-based activism in East Jerusalem! Many thanks to the Jerusalem Foundation and Natan for their support of MiniActive.
Here’s the post (in Arabic) from the MiniActive Facebook page:
