Decorative gift of friendship
A CALDER Valley town is becoming a little bit closer to Palestine thanks to two community projects.
Two wall hangings created at an embroidery session in Hebden Bridge will be sent over to a new women's co-operative in Bethany, near Jerusalem, as a gift of friendship and solidarity.
The Palestinians will also send a wall hanging back.
Young people in Hebden Bridge are also trying to get closer to their young Palestinian counterparts by forming a communication link.
The idea was thought up by the Deputy Mayor of Hebden Royd, Coun Lesley Jones, and saw a delegation representing 15 teenagers from the Lajee cultural centre in the Aida refugee camp, near Bethlehem, meet with local youngsters at an event in Calder Holmes Park.
The Palestinians, who teamed up with local children to perform a Dabke and break dance show at the Piece Hall in Halifax, were at the park to spend time with local youngsters of a similar age and dispel any negative misconceptions they might have had about each other.
Annie O'Gara, a community member of Discover Palestine, the group behind the Palestinian's visit to Calderdale, said: "It is a tremendous opportunity for children who live in incredibly cramped conditions for creative expression.
"Lesley has hopefully set up better connections between the people of Hebden Bridge and Palestine. It's the first step in finding similar interests and common ground."
The idea is to communicate once a month via email and set each other tasks to do, such a make a short film, and then compare what they've done.
Coun Jones is delighted that local youngsters have shown such a keen interest in forging links with their contemporaries living in the war-torn region.
"For me it's all about putting human faces to all the things that you see in the media about the Palestinians," she said.
"We're trying to get a core group of youngsters here to work with a bunch of people of a similar age over there and hopefully we'll get a bunch of core projects set up in the long term."
The Mayor of Hebden Royd, Coun Robin Dixon, who attended the embroidery session and contributed a panel to one of the wall hangings, said: "Hebden Royd gave them the funding for the project so that is were our involvement came in. It's a good thing and it's nice to see that we are developing a real relationship with Palestine."
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Saturday 11 February 2012
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