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Women in Action project description

February/ March 2014: Twelve Palestinian young women and two leaders will join a British group of the same size for ten days during which they will organise together a celebration of International Women's Day and make materials and an action plan for further shared activities.

Before the exchange, both groups of women will prepare pictures and presentations to show the other group as part of the programme and each will plan a special day of activities focusing on women's lives in their own country.

At the beginning of the exchange visit, the group will stay together in the British countryside near Northampton. This will allow time to run the 'British Day' and 'Palestinian Day' that the groups had previously organised. There will be many discussions and activities and also meetings with local women. This will be a chance too to see the products of previous exchanges – short animated films made by 'A Day in Our Lives' (2013) and the website made by 'Old Skills, New Skills' (2012). The women will together review what they have learned and plan for the main part of the project.

They will then travel to London where they will meet women's organisations and university women's societies. They will work in groups to find out about the city, young women's lives and the ways that different groups involve young women and encourage them to be active. Each afternoon they will put together photographs, interviews and learning from the day's events. By the end of the week the work of the groups will be joined together into a presentation that can be displayed. The final project day will be a public event on International Women's Day itself. This will include a display of work from the visit, presentations by the young women, workshops discussing women's and human rights issues and building an action plan for the following year. In the evening there will be celebrations for International Women's Day.

The work done by the participants during the exchange will be prepared as a bilingual magazine to present to people formally in both countries during the summer of 2014, when the women will also be presented with Youthpass certificates. We plan to do this on the same day in both countries.

Our previous Youth in Action projects have helped to build and strengthen twinning links between organisations in Palestine and Britain. This programme is a further step in the same direction. Contact between the participants and their organisation will continue after the exchange; the magazine made will be launched and disseminated in both countries. The workshops on International Women's Day will identify practical steps to strengthen links between young women's and students organisations in London and Palestine and this will lead on to future projects.