Gender Equality Palestine Project #37265

Refugee Community Bakery for Health and Pride!

by Karama Organisation for Women and Children's Development

Project Report | Nov 4, 2021
Thank you... we are closing! (Learn why inside)

By Yasser | Alhaj

Salaam aleikum dear friends from all over the world,

How are you doing? Hope you and your loved ones are happy and healthy.

It has been such an honor to connect with you through GlobalGiving. A few short years back, we would have never thought we could write this message to you, but here we are. Connected with more people than we ever thought. And supporting our communities in ways we never dreamed of.

If you know the Karama family, you know we have always been thinking a lot about money. Seriously though, we always have a hate/love relationship; using it as a tool to support our communities and at the same time disliking the money-based society. We care about the why's and how's of money too. We care about the values of the organizations that support of and see each individual that takes the effort to support our work. But we also care about money as a way to instill a sense of responsibility, generosity and dignity in the people that we work alongside. Do not remain reliant on the "hand-out" mentality, but be active to contribute your own fair share.

Karama has always been interested in finding ways to support our work without relying on constant donations. From the very start of our organization we looked for ways to sell handcrafts, Palestinian products or be of service to others in order to create income streams for Karama and do more good in Palestine. This vision was accelerated in the last two years when we learned and thought together with some amazingly dedicated women from Deheishe camp to grow our vision of a local bakery and production center.

Today, we are so excited that this community bakery and kitchen is operating in Deheishe camp and producing each day delicious meals, pastries and sweets. We are grateful for all the early supporters, vistors and donors who loved this idea and contributed to it in many different ways. It is very fullfilling for the women to connect each day with local customers who love their food.

Today we feel it is the right time to close this GlobalGiving donation page, and rely on our own income streams to keep this social business going. Donations are better placed in other projects and initiatives (all our other project pages remain open!!). So far we love social entrepreneurship as a tool for community development. It is amazingly hard work, requires lots of learning and team work, but is also paying of, empowering women and communities and making them able to support themselves.

Karama Organization continues all our other work in Palestine, supporting women and children in many ways. And you are very welcome to continue to contribute to our work. The bakery and kitchen in Deheishe however, will continue without the donations from GG. We will of course keep you updated on any developents through our social media and regular reports.

Hit reply if you have any questions!

If you are a monthly donor to this project you are welcome to select another project page for your donation!

See our facebook pages linked below for more updates!

Some of the products of the women

Links:

Project website for Bakery and Kitchen

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May 24, 2021
We had to change our Eid wishes... [Message from Palestine]

By Karama | Team

Eid biscuits production by Karama's bakery

Greetings from occupied Palestine.

This message was supposed to be different. In our drafts, a wonderful Eid message was scheduled to go out on the 13th of May to mark the Eid lFitr holiday and show the progress of the women in the local bakery. But then the repression of Palestinians in Jerusalem increased, then forced displacements in Sheikh Jarrah came to a boiling point, then the violent attacks on worshippers in the Al Aqsa mosque. The bombardments started, and hundreds of innocent lives were lost... pain and damage inflicted on whole families, neighbourhoods and cities.

So our scheduled email was deleted. Words of "Eid Mubarak" or Happy Eid were out of place. But what else to say, how to put into words the amount of loss, desperation, anger or determination we experienced? How to express our gratitude for the solidarity in a few lines? How to formulate to you our hopes for an end to violence, occupation and apartheid, and dreams of a generation who can grow up, learn from past mistakes and live in freedom??

After the ceasefire is holding in Gaza and the bombing has stopped, we reach out to you again. We thank you for seeing us and connecting with Karama and Palestinians in so many different ways. We want you to know that now more than ever we need you to talk about Palestine. To listen to and look at Palestinians. To share and discuss what you've seen. We have seen articles stating "outsiders should just stay out of this "conflict" and keep their opinion to themselves, it isn’t helpful". But that totally overlooks the enabling factor government, businesses and consumers globally have to these different forms of apartheid, occupation and oppression. Everybody has a role to play to work towards social justice everywhere and we are so grateful for all the people doing their bit.

Karama is honored and happy to tell you Karama's bakery is running well; the Eid biscuits were another hit this year. Many orders were produced in the last weeks of different breads and dishes. Did you know we now have the tools to cook full meals such as waraq dawali, the delicious stuffed vine leaves. Yes even Palestinian families get lazy sometimes and order their traditional dishes as take out! :) Our marketing strategy has improved with your help! New flyers have been created as well as boxes and bags with our logo.

We will continue to update you on our activities to address the needs in our project communities, with the greenhouses, local entrepreneurial activities and emergency distributions. Connect to us on our website and Facebook if you haven't already and let's stay in touch.

Thank you again for being part of this initiative and inshallah you will visit us as soon as the situation allows!

Work in the Deheishe bakery...

Selling took place in local stores & social media

Links:

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Nov 15, 2020
We're Hopeful! Restarting our social business during COVID19

By Karama | Team

Working hard at Karama's production unit!

Dear global friends,

How have you been? How have you been feeling about the change of seasons, the last season before we exit this year 2020? Let me tell you, here in Palestine it is still nothing short of a rollercoaster ride. Many ups and downs in the past few months. But something we keep holding on to; hope. Hope that our women will know better days, that our children will know better days, that our hard-working small business and entrepreneurs will know better days. That the hardships and the many lessons this time brings will pay off for a better tomorrow. A greener, a freer, and more respectful tomorrow for all our women and children.

And Karama Organization has been taking many practical steps towards this in the last month. Initially, a lot of our energy was put into emergency distributions of food, non-food items, and cash (with over 3000 households reached). Then we worked on community rebuilding and resilience, through our Cash-for-Work program that so far has supported more than 55 households. But now, the staff has been working hard to restart the bakery activities and the production unit in Deheishe camp. These social business activities will employ many women from the camp, provide them with a fair income, and offer healthy, delicious (and often organic) food products in our regions. So we all are very excited to keep these social enterprises moving, even during the ongoing COVID19 crisis in Palestine and globally.

We have to adapt though. Due to Coronavirus, schools and organizations are not always open, sometimes businesses still close – making the marketing of our products much harder. The same for accessing our raw materials, limited mobility makes this difficult at times. The women we employ all need to receive protective materials, and ventilation and physical distance possibilities need to be up-to-date in our working and selling areas. But where there’s a will, there’s a way!

The team has been active with brand development, testing equipment, training new employees, piloting (and tasting) products and creating marketing/visibility items. Have a look at these short clips of the women in action and tell us what you think!

Link to our Youtube channel.

Lastly, we couldn’t be more proud to see our social business initiative been recommended for a global award: the Global Enterp Awards to support social businesses working towards the Social Development Goals! We will let you know what happens next, but we are so proud and excited to be short-listed.

Thank you for supporting this initiative in Palestine!

You can check out the promotional clip here, and don’t forget to reply to us!

Links:

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