CADFA Palestinian women's visit 2013

Project summary...

This project will bring twelve Palestinian young women and a leader to join a British group of  the same size for ten days of sharing, exploration and creative activities. They will find out about each other’s lives as young women in Palestine and Britain and use the theme of ‘a typical day’ as a way to compare and contrast their experience. They will look at the importance of human rights and relate this to the rights of women. They will make a short animated film to record their experience.

Before the exchange both groups of women will prepare photos, crafts and other material to show the other group as part of the programme and each will plan a special day of activities focusing on women’s lives in their own country.

At the beginning of the exchange visit, the group will stay together in the British countryside in Sussex. This will allow time to run the 'British Day' and 'Palestinian Day' that the groups had previously organised. There will be many discussions and activities and also meetings with women from local twinning groups in Sussex. This will be a chance too to see the products of previous exchanges - previous short films and the website made by 'Old Skills, New Skills' (2012). The women will together review what they have learned and plan for the main part of the project.

They will then travel to London where they will meet young women's organisations and work in groups to find out about the city, young women’s lives and ways of representing them in film. Each afternoon they will take part in an animated film workshop and by the end of the week the work of the groups will be joined together to make a short film that can be displayed.

Their final day will be a public event which will include a display of work from the visit, a film show, a workshop on women’s lives and human rights and celebrations for International Women’s Day.

The programme builds on our previous Youth in Action projects and takes them further. Contact between the participants will continue after the exchange, there will be public showings of their film in both countries and this work will strengthen the links between young women's and students organisations in London and Palestine and lead on to future projects.