HPH is a registered NGO established in 1985. Our purpose is to achieve a just peace to the Israeli Palestinian conflict. We do this through education and outreach activities with in the Arab, Israeli and International communities. Thus, our slogan is Awareness and Action.

HPH conducts education programs that empower women, children and youth from the working class Arab community so that they can advance their position in society. We do this through helping them strengthen their identity and skills with a special emphasis on creativity and a tolerant approach. We are gender oriented both in our contents, target groups and staff. HPH is active in the peace movement through publications, documentary films and lectures, all directed to build a just society void of oppression and discrimination.

HPH is part of a network which includes The Workers Advice Center and Sindyanna of Galilee (HWS). The three organizations share a similar vision and work with in a common target group, each contributing in its own field

HPH holds its programs in the following locations: Nazareth, Um al Fahem, Kufur Qara, Kufr Manda and Tel Aviv.

Persimmons by Day, Empowerment by Night
Michal Schwartz

For more than a year, fourteen women have been meeting once weekly in an empowerment workshop at the WAC/HPH center in Kufr Qara. This is no small achievement. Most arrive after laboring for six to eight hours in harvesting, pruning or packing. This is followed by housework, child care and cooking. By the time the empowerment session starts at 6 p.m., the women are exhausted. And still they arrive, like clockwork. One by one they enter, women in their thirties and forties, dressed for the occasion (with one exception they cover their heads). All week they've looked forward to this meeting. continue

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Denis Asad - story telling

The Prison Within
On Asurot, a documentary by Anat Even and Ada Ushpiz
Asma Agbarieh

As the camera stalks Hebron in search of a story about the Occupation, it encounters oppression of another kind. New levels are discovered, things not foreseen. of three Palestinian widows who were married to men from a single family. They are Siham, Nawal and Najwa; the family name is Abu Minshar. They live with their eleven children on the seam of the partitioned city. Israeli soldiers sit on the roof of their house, using it as an observation post. continue

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Anat Even and the women's forum of Kufr-Qara

Summer Camp
7.7.06-14.7.06

The summer camp was held at the beginning of July at the Hanitzotz / WAC community centers in Nazareth and Kufr Qara. Taking part were 130 children and 30 leaders. The subject of this year’s camp was "Mankind and Nature – exploring our surrounding". The children learned about the problems of the environment, science, geography, animals and the relationship with humans and more. The way the children learned was through art, games and active studies. They visited the Science museum in Haifa, a recycling center, an animal farm, The planetarium and more.

For more about the Summer-Camp see Challenge magazine 99

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The children of the Summer-Camp making paper out of recycled material

Baskets - Bazaar
21.4.06 - Kufr-Qara
3.6.06 - Tel Aviv

During the Shavuot holiday, HPH and Bamat-etgar hosted a basketry bazaar. Its modest hall in south Tel Aviv filled up, as by magic, with baskets woven by Arab women, graduates of courses in Kufr Qara and Nazareth. The bazaar drew a large crowd: people involved in environmental issues, co-existence, women's empowerment, and folk art. More than 70% of the baskets were snapped up.

The basket weavers learned their skills in courses organized by Sindyanna and Hanitzotz Publishing House. The purpose was to help provide work for Arab women. Most of the participants have suffered through long years of forced unemployment. The sales of the baskets reached 1000 Euro, Which the women received directly.

(more about the basketry project: www.sindyanna.com )

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Art Sale "Bread and Roses"
16.9.06

HPH and Bamat Etgar hosted an exhibition of 200 works of art. Some 180 artists, Jews and Arabs participated. The exhibition drew a lot of media attention because of the participating artists (well known names in the field of art) as well as the cause. The benefits will be invested in work and training of Arab women in the framework of HPH and WAC. The exhibition was very successful and we raised about 33.000 $, of which 25% will go to the artists.

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Video48 - The Mall
Screenings in the Jerusalem Film Festival and in The Tel Aviv Cinemateque

The ten minute film "The Mall", produced by the Video48 group (of HPH) tells the story of hundreds of illegal workers that enter Israel from the West Bank to seek a job. They live in an abandoned shopping mall, three floors underground, in the foundations of a shopping-mall whose construction was halted. They lack electricity, air, or water. Amid the choking stench, mattresses, blankets and other belongings, you find scattered on the floor, remnants of the lives of workers who try to preserve a human form even in subhuman conditions.

The film was sponsored by WHO (World Health Organization) and is a part of a compilation with three other films from Israel and Palestine. So far, the film was shown in the Jerusalem Film Festival and in the Tel Aviv Cinemateque. In these days, Video48 is working on a longer version of the film.

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"The Mission" of Video48 in Cordoba
"Laimagen del Sur" Film Festival

Video48 was invited to take part in the film festival "LAimagen del Dur" (Images from the South) in Cordoba, Spain. The film "The Mission" was shown among other films from Latin America, the Middle East and Africa. "The Mission" is following a trade union delegation that visited Israel in the year 2004 in order to learn first hand about the labor market in the country. The delegation met workers in the construction market, migrant workers, Palestinians within Israel and in the west bank

More about the Mission: www.video48.com

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Fair Trade Calendar - Promoting Arab Artists in Israel
celabrating the 100th issue of Challenge Magazine

The cause of producing a fair trade calendar is connected to two happy occasions: one is the upcoming 100th issue of Challenge, and the other is Sindyanna of Galilee’s tenth anniversary. Our 2007 Fair Trade Calendar, consisting of twelve paintings, is part of a new project supporting Palestinian artists who live and work in Israel. The aim is to help them gain exposure by including reproductions of their work. By its nature, art interrupts our usual ways of seeing. For a deeply conservative society, this aspect makes it provocative, even subversive. By remaining in their communities, the twelve artists represented in the calendar have linked their careers to the development of Palestinian society as a whole.

To order a calendar please contact us

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Roni Ben Efrat, Funding and program coordinator of HPH, Sindyanna and WAC visits Italy
27.9.06-9.10.06

Between September 27 and October 9th, Roni Ben Efrat, toured Italy. She was invited to represent Sindyanna of Galilee at Mediterre, a yearly conference and fair held by Parks in the city of Bari. This organization is responsible for the National Parks in Italy.

Ben Efrat took this opportunity to conduct meetings in Rome with Trade Unions and women organizations. Casa De La Donne in Rome a women center which unites some 25 women groups organized a public meeting with Ben Efrat. Among the sponsoring groups of the meeting were the Association of Women of the Mediterranean and Article 21.

Ben Efrat Visited Chico Mendes a fair trade partner of Sindyanna to talk about developing the relations between the organizations. She ended her trip in a three day conference of News in Bolzano, in the north of Italy. News is an organization which unites some 2000 world shops across Europe and the US.

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HPH center in Kufr-Qara

Last October we opened a new center in Kufr-Qara. After a year’s activity the center has become a fountain of activities. There are about 180 people who are participating in the centers’ activities, among them; women, youth children and workers. Three groups of women, participate in different awareness and training sessions; many of them work during the day as agricultural laborers. There are two youth groups, of young workers. Two groups of children are participating in an art and science program. The center conducts lectures, trips and educational activities, some of which are organized by the participants themselves.

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