People Building Bridges
- Summer 2015 - Newsletter -
Dear Friends, - Daoud Nassar - It
has been a while since you’ve last
heard from us but we are still here
working hard to achieve justice. We
would like to share with you the
latest news about the Tent of
Nations farms, about the legal
situation, about the challenges on
the ground, but also about our hope
and desire to keep moving forward in
a very difficult political reality.
Political Situation - The
political situation is getting more
difficult. Land confiscation is
going on and on for building new
settlements or/and expanding the
existing ones. The wall is
continuing to be built, especially
now in the Bethlehem area and is
separating farmers from their own
land. The settlements around the
around the Tent of Nations farm are
also expanding, making the
Palestinian villages more isolated.
According to the Settlement Watch
article published on 23/07/2015:”
The sub-committee for settlements
for the higher planning committee of
the military’s civil administration
met on 22.7.2015 and it approved the
construction of a religious school (Yeshiva)
near Neve Daniel Settlement, which
will be exactly very close to the
Tent of Nations near where the road
is blocked. If this would happen,
the Tent of Nations would become
more isolated which means more
challenges for us.
Land Process - Last February the
Supreme Court sent our case again to
the Military Committee and the
second demanded us to start a new
process of reregistration of our
land. We had to prepare the
documents and a new land survey. The
application was submitted on April
20th, 2015. Today, we are still
waiting for an answer.
Recently, we found another
demolishing order for a cistern. It
is a frustrating situation for us,
especially when we see the
settlements are expanding and at the
same time we have difficulties and
restrictions working on our own land
that we own since 1916.
We heard that new trees are also
threatened to be uprooted and we are
trying to stop that legally. We have
to go through this very dark tunnel
but still believing that at the end
justice will prevail.
We will keep you updated regarding
any urgent development about the
land issue as well as the building
of the new religious school close to
the road block. Please do not take
any action unless you hear from us.
We will inform you if, what kind and
when, actions are needed.
Agricultural Development -
During the winter months, we
prepared a big area of land and
planted with trees. We are glad that
we were able to plant 4000 new trees
and replaced the ones that been
destroyed last year. We will keep
planting trees as a sign of hope for
a better future.
We are watering the new planted
trees once in a week just to keep a
bit of humidity in the ground to
help the trees survive the hot
months. We might have to buy water.
We already prepared another area of
land for tree planting. Our plan is
to plant 3000 grape trees this
coming October. The plan is to able
to produce more grape juice and
syrup. By increasing the farm
production, our goal is to make the
farm self-sustainable.
Special thanks to all people who
sponsored or/and planted trees.
Thank you so much in helping to keep
hope alive.
Usually in June we have the apricot
and the apple harvest, but last June
we had no harvest, because of the
destruction of our fruit trees last
May. In July we had the almond
harvest but it was a bad harvest
this year. Today is the last day of
the grape harvest. We are making jam
and grape syrup out of the grapes.
The fig harvest is still going on in
September and by end of October, we
will have the olive harvest. Our
farm shop will be full of products
from the farm.
Special thanks to all volunteers who
came from different countries and
helped us during the harvest season.
We started developing a better
infrastructure for the animals. A
new fence is being built around the
animal farm. We are still working in
developing places for the animals
and we will buy more chickens, goats
and sheep to increase the
productivity, but also forpurposes,
especially during our children
summer camps.
Infrastructure - Energy: Last
spring the solar power system was
expanded; new panels were installed
as well as a new invertor. Now the
system is producing 10 KW of
electricity, which is enough for now.
The only thing is that we couldn’t
add new batteries to the existing
old ones but we will wait until the
old ones have to be replaced in
order to buy more new batteries.
Still we have a plan to install
small wind mills for generating
electricity and to charge the
batteries during the night. After we
stopped using our Diesel generator
in 2009, we managed to save more
than $45,000 for fuel expenses.
Special thanks to all sponsors who
helped in this project that made the
farm in terms of energy totally
independent.
Water: - Each year, we have been
increasing our rain water collection
capacity in order to have enough
water for agriculture. We are
working now on adding more water
collection capacity in order to
become independent in terms of water.
We renovated a new cave to be used
to host more volunteers on the farm.
Another one in the valley is under
renovations as well as our new
campsite with a space for a big tent,
a sitting place and an outside
kitchen.
We are still working on renovating
the new community room for
volunteers. Children decorated the
walls with mosaic and wonderful
paintings during the children summer
camp last July.
The filtration system and biofuel
project are still not completed.
Those kinds of projects will help
the farm to be self sustainable.
The children Summer Camp July 2015
- From the 20th until the 31st
of July we had our fourteenth
children summer camp under the
title: with heart and hand, we
change the land. We had 25
international and local volunteers
who worked with the children from
Bethlehem area.
The Brass for peace group also
participated and children made music
on brass instruments. With this
camp, and through creative workshops,
our goal was to let the children
discover their talents, focus on
their positives and believe in
themselves that they are able to
shape their future.
On the last day of the camp, we
invited the parents and friends to
see what their kids were doing
during the summer camp. Children
were showing their parents around
and the parents were encouraged by
their own children. Special thanks
to all volunteers who came and
helped in making our children summer
camp very successful.
Bent Al Reef Women’s Project -
The Bent Al Reef Women’s project
finished its year beginning of last
June. It was great to see the fruits
of the work that Jihan and other
volunteers been doing. Many
activities were done, like English,
computer and other educational
classes as well as art workshops.
They worked also on recycling
plastic bags, crocheting them into
purses, bags and baskets as well as
recycling broken glass into stained
glass art pieces. The idea is to
raise more awareness about
environmental issues and to
encourage those women to be active
in taking better care of the
environment.
The project will start again on the
7th of September 2015 after 3 months
of summer break.
Guest Groups and Volunteers -
Between March and August 2015, we
welcomed many volunteers from
different countries who came to
spend some time helping on different
projects. A special thanks to all
who came and offered their time to
help.
Last week we had to say goodbye to
Johannes and Simon from Germany who
spent a year on the farm, living in
a cave and helping for a year. We
appreciate the presence and the help
of volunteers very much.
Volunteers are always welcome to
come and help. For more information
about volunteering at the Tent of
Nations, please check our website
www.tentofnations.org .
In the last months, many visitors
came to see the Tent of Nations, to
hear its story and challenges but
also to learn about hope in action.
It is an encouragement to see the
number of visitor groups is
increasing.
Special thanks to all people who
came to visit the Tent of Nations
and learn about the work we are
doing.
Upcoming - On the 20th of
October we will start the olive
harvest and we are expecting some
new volunteers to help with the
harvest. End of October, we will
start planting 3000 new grape trees.
Volunteers are welcome to come and
help in planting.
From 9-12. May 2016 we are
celebrating 100 years anniversary (one
hundred years of existence on our
farm). Friends are welcome to come
and join us for a week of
celebrations including different
activities, fieldtrips and workshops.
We will be sending an invitation
very soon.
For more information, please check
our website www.tentofnations.org
and our face book page: Tent of
Nations/Nassar Farm. We would love
to see you.
Finally, we would like to thank you
all for your prayers, for your
support, and for your solidarity.
Blessings and Salaam, Daoud Nassar,
Tent of Nations – People Building
Bridges -
dnassar@tentofnations.org
Das Projekt "TENT
OF NATIONS" - "ZELT DER VÖLKER" -
des palästinensischen Christen Daoud
Nassar
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