Climate Action Palestine Project #46358

Gardens, Goats, and More: Climate Action Palestine

by Rebuilding Alliance

Project Report | Nov 20, 2020
Gardens and ... Sheep?

By Jovita Sofia Jiz de Ortega | Outreach Coordinator

Mrs. Najah at the gardening shop

I'm so happy to be writing another report for you about Gardens. Goats, and More. I joined Rebuilding Alliance in March, and this is the first project I helped build from the ground up. This upcoming December 1st is also my first time participating in Giving Tuesday! I'm so excited, and I hope you'll join us. More information on that below.

Since we have yet to meet our project's fundraising goal, Rebuilding Alliance started with a pilot project with one of our local NGO partners, Women Programs Center Rafah (WPC-R). They selected 4 families as beneficiaries. According to executive director, Mrs. Najah Ayash, "Families who were already clients of the Center were contacted by phone to fill out an application. Their qualification for the program depended on their poverty level, availability of space for cultivation and raising sheep, and practical experience."

Because WPC-R has done similar projects in the past, families will receive expert guidance to make sure their crops and animals can flourish for a long time. Per our last report, our field visit with the Agricultural Development Association in Palestine (PARC) emphasized that expert support is essential to the success of small-scale agricultural projects.

A few weeks ago, Mrs. Najah personally visited all the families to check on their well-being and see the space where they will cultivate their crops and livestock. She determined that some families have enough space for sheep. Because of price and maintenance, sheep will be much more practical than goats. Mrs. Najah then shopped for gardening supplies with two of the beneficiaries. One of the beneficiaries pictured here, Rania, also works at WPC-R to help support her family as the only breadwinner. We're hoping this training will lead her to become the project manager as the Garden and Goats program expands.

Add Giving Tuesday to Your Calendar

Please keep these families in your thoughts as Giving Tuesday launches on December 1st. GlobalGiving is distributing $1,000,000 across all participating projects. Funds will be distributed proportionally based on final fundraising totals. In other words, projects with more supporters will earn a bigger slice of the pie. We invite you to join us for this wonderful opportunity. All recurring donations will be matched 100%!

Thank you for your support,

Sofia

Mrs. Najah & Rania

Mrs. Najah and a beneficiary from another family

This family's yard has plenty of space for sheep

Another family's yard with lots of usable space

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Jul 24, 2020
An enriching field trip

By Jovita Sofia Jiz de Ortega | Outreach Coordinator

Our NGO partners with a PARC representative (left)

For "Gardens, Goats, and More," Rebuilding Alliance wanted to increase our chance of success as much as possible. In our research, we spoke to different groups that had experience in small-scale agriculture and income-generation projects so we could learn from their experiences.

One of these organizations was Palestine's Agriculture Development Association (self-styled as PARC) which does work in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. They are very experienced in developmental farming projects ranging from greenhouses to providing farm animals and birds. After a preliminary videoconference (at 6 AM in California and 4 PM in Gaza), they generously offered to take our Palestinian NGO partners on a field trip to show one of their succesful projects. Our high school interns, Lama and Mazen, also tagged along. Lama's dream is to be a cowgirl in Gaza. She wants to have a cow and distribute the milk to needy families. Although this proposal is not part of "Gardens, Goats, and More," Rebuilding Alliance still thought that Lama and Mazen could learn a lot from the trip.

On July 5th, a representative from PARC took them to a thriving garden run by a grandmother. She has been able to support her family just from the income generated by this garden and farm animals given to her by PARC. She even has a barter arrangement with the local market to trade food she has grown for food that vendors sell in the market.

Our partners sounded so excited when they reported back on their day with PARC, and we all learned so much. What was key to the PARC program's success came down to two factors. One, they were very selective about their candidates. They conducted extensive interviews with them and visited in-person to confirm their capacity for animals and gardening. Two, there was a lot of support before and during the process. Candidates were required to attend workshops before starting. Veterinarians conducted regular check-ups on the animals and taught them how to deal with emergencies. All this support was available all the way to the last day of the project. As a result, all of PARC's beneficiaries from this program—not just the owner shown below—still have thriving gardens and/or animals today. This is all the more remarkable because PARC ended this program two years ago when their funding ran out.

All in all, the field trip was very educational. Rebuilding Alliance is now in the process of working with our partners to identify beneficiaries. Our NGO partners are now choosing families for their pilot projects. More news to come.

The owner of the garden (center) shows us her crop

Lama-Rebuilding Alliance intern & aspiring cowgirl

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