Build the Movement: Support Achvat Amim!

On August 9th we said goodbye to our 5-week summer cohort: 12 folks who came from the US, Italy, Australia, and the Netherlands to Israel/Palestine to engage in meaningful solidarity work and learn from movement leaders on the ground. The summer program created an immediate relationship between political education and their lived experiences: participants were asked to grapple with histories and structures of colonialism, ethnonationalism, and stratification while simultaneously encountering their consequences on the ground. Rather than treating the curriculum as an abstract analysis of Israel/Palestine, participants had to continually negotiate the relationship between what they were learning, what they were witnessing, and their own position within those structures.

Achvaters spent two days each week in Masafer Yatta working alongside our local partners. Each Wednesday and Thursday morning, participants helped run a summer camp in Umm al-Khair, leading games, music, arts and crafts, and English lessons. For months, settlers, backed by the state, have obstructed access to the village school, disrupting children's access to education. Amid escalating settler violence in the village, including a home demolition and encroachment into Salem's home immediately beside the community center, we worked with residents to identify a meaningful role we could play: creating consistent educational programming and a space where children could learn, play, and experience some carefree moments during an otherwise extraordinarily difficult summer. By the end of each week, kids were proudly showing off their new English vocabulary for body parts, animals, fruits, and vegetables.

In the evenings, participants worked on an agricultural plot in Tuwani as part of local efforts to maintain and reclaim Palestinian access to land. Participants worked alongside community members tending eggplant, cucumbers, tomatoes, za'atar, and other crops.

One particularly impactful moment was bringing the cohort to Awdah’s memorial, both from standing with the community in their grief and the experience of state suppression and violence.

Here's what one participant had to say about their experience:

"I have been doing anti-occupation work in the US for a long time and I thought I already understood the reality. But there is something completely different to not only seeing it but from hearing directly from the communities and how apartheid and occupation affects their day to day experience. I feel more energized to continue my organizing work. And I understand why being on the ground can be important."