The last day before leaving the great LONDON after the BBQ party

Way Back

Alaa Abu Rmeileh 

 The trip back home to Palestine wasn't easy. First we took a train to King's cross station then another train to Gatewick Airport. After that we travelled to Jordan & then we needed to go to Amman where we took a bus.. we got a few hours of sleep :$ waking up in the time of Down to go to the bridge between Jordan & Palestine.. 5:00am was the time of leaving.. we reached the bridge & there were a lot of people already waiting since the bridge opens for half a day on Fridays :$ we waited then we did all the papers & took a bus to the Palestinian side which is controlled & administrated by the Israeli government.. tgere we waited for hours to enter that side of the bridge then we had to wait for many hours for Sa'ad who was kept on the other side because the Israelis wanted to play a stress game with us!! However, we decided to go home all together & at the end they allowed him to go.. elhamdullah we went home safely

In the paper in Pendle

Above from the Lancashire Telegraph; below from Pendle Today

Palestinian students in Pendle as part of twinning

Goodbye all of you, ALA LIQAA

Meetings

 Abdelkareem talking at a meeting at CADFA

 Saja showing us what is where

 various pictures of the website workshops...

 Mahmoud Sarsak and Haya al-Farrah at the Student Twinning Conference

Thank you KEFAYA

A massive thank you to KEFAYA who played for us on the evening of 16th June  - We were so lucky...

With Mahmoud Sarsak at the student twinning conference

It was great to meet Mahmoud Sarsak, Palestinian footballer and long-term hunger striker *here in jacket in front row.
It's a pity this group photo doesnt include all of us - I think we dont have one that does,unfortunately ... but there are quite a few of us here!

Thanks to Umar Shazad for being a member of the Honourable Society of Lincolns Inn (one of four Inns of Court in London, to which barristers belong) we had the opportunity to have a tour of the Inn, where both Margaret Thatcher and Tony Blair are members.

We also went to The Royal Courts of Justice.....

Then Issa fell asleep on the tube.....

visit for UCL university زياره جامعه

قام كل من مجموعه من طلاب مشروع معا بزياره جامعه    وقام طلاب من جامعه  بالتعريف بالجامعه ومرافقها
وحول التوائمه بين مجالس الطلبه واهميتها ,
كانت المجموعه مكونه من عزت , رند , اصاله , سجى , حذيفة وهنا
ومحمد

تمت بواسطة : حذيفة 

Inside and outside - group bits

جوله سياحيه في مركز مدينه لندن

قام الطلاب المشاركون في مشروع معاً بجوله سياحيه في قلب مدينه لندن وزياره ساعه بيج بن , ودولاب اللندن اي وجسر نهر التايم
The students the participants in the project together, touring the heart of the City of London and visit Big Ben , london eye , times river

تمت بواسطة
حذيفة جاموس , سعد عياد , حازم ابونجمه 

Visit to the Houses of Parliament

Friday 14th June- A very interesting visit to the Houses of Parliament led by the Friends of Palestine society. The tour of the House of Commons and Lords were particularly interesting in terms of the history that is encapsulated within the building and the ongoing work the Friends of Palestine soicety are doing.

We met with a member of the Palestinian Embassy here in London who told us about the work they do in terms of raising awareness and keeping the issue at the forefront of politicians minds.

We travelled by bus to Camden Market and ate street food together. We then gathered at the City Learning Centre where our aim was to begin designing a 10 second animation to go on the website.

London is a lot different to Pendle, it is busy and exciting. Despite everyone being very tired, we are still full of hope, and we laugh......a lot!

Positive feedback from visit to SOAS

Fri, 14th June 2013 - We had a very successful meeting with SOAS Student Union officers to bring up a discussion on our ultimate aim for this project; the student twinning. The meeting was attended by 3 full-time student union officers, SOAS SU Campaign officer, representative from SOAS Radio and a committee member of Palestine Society, and of course the Ma’an team!

This friendly dialogue was mainly focus on what does 'student twinning' means and to explore the key areas on how to make 'student twinning' meaningful and effectively beneficial to both sides; the Palestinians and the UK students in the long-term prospect.

The meeting started with introduction on how student union in the UK and Palestine in general work, we talked and shared both its similarities and contrast. We are grateful to have a Palestinian student who in fact studying Master in Political Science to provide us greater insight in relation to student political movement in Palestine.

Twinning - Among the ideas generated was to work on society-to-society-based, linking up students on area of expertise for instance on media and communication area where students from both sides can exchange their ideas and works so as to promote deeper understanding on Israel/Palestine conflict. This particularly was brought up following sharing by the SOAS radio representative and one of the Palestinian students (Huthaifa) on their works. Huthaifa show us his media and tv works covering protests in the west bank which is unusual and rarely seen by the British students, this is interestingly brought us to imagine the sort of collaboration that can be achieved through twinning for instance in the aspect of translation, editing, publicity etc. We are also very pleased to know that the editor of SOAS student newspaper is in fact a Palestinian! Other area that can be explored and discussed; law and human rights, which crucially important such as Israel warcrimes of imprisonment of Palestinian minors.

  Al-Quds University, Jerusalem

Protest in West Bank

However, one of the issues which is the main concern is sustainability. Often due to the nature of university students that come and go, the works done by previous students may have not known or forgotten by fresh students. We thought that this is where the student union could play its active roles, we argued that twinning should be put into annual agenda of the union, of promoting and encouraging all areas in the university to optimise mutual collaboration between UK and Palestine.

We understand that in doing this, as a democratic movement, the union needs to be able to get a substantial vote, in which a motion will have to pass through during the AGM enlisting the objectives and strategy for twinning. To add, it also has to come from the students themselves, as this is the force that shape the direction of the union. In doing so, effectively the work now should be focusing in cooperating with the Palestine society to make the matter above into reality.

It is to be noted that SOAS as a pro-Palestine institution is a unique case, its tremendous overwhelming support on Palestinians cause brings joyful tears to the Palestinian students who attended this meeting. It is to be hoped that the cooperation between SOAS students and Palestinian students will continue to prosper, it is the time that the present strong bonding will be taken up to another level so as we could work effectively to fight injustice in Palestine.

We look forward for the next university visits on Monday, meeting students from UCL, Goldsmith’s, City and Islington. More to come...In sha Allah.

In the meantime, we leave you with one entertaining video of Huthaifa. We had a great laugh during the meeting due to this video. Enjoy!

Check this out!

• - SOAS Radio
• - SOAS Graduate scholarship
• - SOAS Palestine Society

-group 4-

زياره جامعه visit Uni SAOS