Holy Land Trust is committed to create community projects aimed at strengthening the local community, specifically projects aimed at empowering girls and enhancing the role of female leadership.

We have witnessed several incidents of violence against women. But we should also note that this phenomenon has nothing to do with the character of the Palestinian people, and is not linked to the Palestinian customs, traditions, respect and appreciation for women. The woman is the land, the grandmother, the mother, the sister, the mother of the our captive fighters, and the womb of the revolution throughout our honorable history. The role of Palestinian women is not a secondary role in any aspect of life and society, and they retain an influential role decision-making.

With this in hearts and mind, we have started a new project “Stories” that aims to include university girls’ students from Bethlehem University. The main objective of this project is to highlight the importance of the Palestinian women in history making and reviving the culture from generation to another . “Stories” further aims to highlight the role of women in history-making from a feminist point of view, to display feminist history through the stories of women of different times, to photograph them. We will do this through the means of a photo gallery. We aim to organise these photo galleries in various locations starting with Holy Land Trust followed by various other locations including Bethlehem university, then in the refugee camps and in bet-lahem live festival.

The participants will be trained to formulate dialogues and appropriate questions for an interview. They will also be trained in the art of photography to support and facilitate their interviewing skills.

Each student will interview a woman of her choice (who may be a grandmother, aunt, a neighbor, or a public figure) and will be tasked with documenting and collecting various narratives and stories depicting several parts of our social and political life alike.

After that, Holy Land Trust will open an exhibition that collects all these narratives in a booklet, with storyboards distributed in acurated gallery that allows the audience to witness and experience these stories.

Holy Land Trust will offer a partial scholarship to those ten university students from the Bethlehem area and its surrounding region as a way to help families facing hard times during the ongoing pandemic.
 
"This project is a great opportunity for me as a Palestinian girl. In every meeting we open up a deep subject that explores the importance of women’s role in any society. Said and Lara are great facilitators; they help us to dig deeper and to find our true selves.
 
In a short period of time me and my fellow students became like a family, we love coming to Holy Land Trust’s authentic building and see the great community that they are creating. I pray that this project could have a second phase – inshallah!"
Adriana Murad ~ Participant

Elias Deis - Executive Director
Holy Land Trust’s E.D., Elias Deis has worked for over a decade at Holy Land Trust. He was formally the Travel & Encounter Program Director and serves on the Beit Sahour City Council.