Short-term (2 to 4 weeks) "heritage protection" project in Palestine

This workcamp, the first of its kind in Palestine within the Patrimonito scheme (UNESCO World Heritage site - Old City of Hebron) seeks in the first place to protect and renovate old Palestinian homes by bringing participants and volunteers from all over the world to work together with their peers from the city of Hebron and students from the Spanish Renovation School, during two weeks.

The situation in Hebron city is a complex one because of the sustained Israeli military occupation, and the Israeli continuous attempts to claim this thousands years old city as part of the Israeli heritage. The fact that Hebron is the only place where there are illegal Israeli settlements within the city itself, adds to the difficult situation, and lately the Israeli government wanted to add the Ibrahimi mosque as one of the Israeli heritages in Palestine.

IPYL is joining the efforts of the Palestinian Authority and different local organizations to organize this workcamp for the first time in this part of the city.

International Palestinian Youth League (IPYL):IPYL is an organization that aims at empowering Palestinian youth through non-formal educational programs, intercultural learning, training, media literacy and youth leadership activities. Since its inception, IPYL has implemented hundreds of activities, including international voluntary workcamps, exchanges, cross-cultural study trips, leadership seminars, think-tank groups and community meetings. By undertaking these activities, IPYL has developed strong alliances with a wide network of individuals and organizations.
For more information about IPYL, please visit - www.ipyl.org

The workcamp seeks to revive the old part of the city of Hebron which has gone still, through many instabilities and disturbances resulting from political and economical situation in the city since four decades. This situation led to the evacuation of people from their homes, and the city became like a ghost town. The local Committee for Rehabilitation, together with the municipality of Hebron and IPYL want to collect all the efforts and the energies to bring Hebron to its normal life by bringing volunteers and tourists to visit the city and enjoy its unique structure and design that goes back to more than 5000 years ago.

The project entails the organization of a workcamp in the Old City of Hebron with the participation of 15 international volunteers to work with local volunteers (most of them are students at the Spanish Academy for renovation) for two weeks. The work will include; joining the students in their practical and theoretical workshops on renovation of old sites, taking part side by side with the students and local volunteers in renovating two old houses which will be used afterwards as community centres that will serve the local community in the old city. The houses are to be modules for high standard and original renovation, not only on local and national level, but on an international one. The project will also include archiving all the ancient pictures, photos, documents and objects from the old city of Hebron, as a nucleus for a specialized museum of this unique and old city, which had lived different eras and times, and controlled by several civilizations over the different times, and left its fingerprints on it.

This project aims at joining and complementing the efforts exerted by the Palestinian Authority and different NGOs in the country to preserve the city’s cultural heritage in an extensive sense, by safeguarding the constitutive elements of its old buildings and ultimately save its entire architectural and social identity, and to contain and encircle the dangers threatening the Old City. The Palestinian Authority had already included the city in its tentative list of the World Heritage and submitted to the UNESCO to be considered in its next meeting sometime this year. One of the places where volunteers will be working and living during this project is located near the Ibrahim Mosque in the Old City, and this place comes in our priorities to revive the Old City by consolidating its bond with its inhabitants, reclaiming abandoned buildings, rehabilitating the infrastructure, providing social services to the population and connecting it to other City neighbourhoods.

By living in the Old City of Hebron, the volunteers will have the chance to visit the families that live in the struggling areas and next to Israeli settlers, where they will experience their real and daily life; they will also attend presentations, documentaries and conferences organized by the local associations and society. IPYL has organized more than 58 international voluntary workcamps in many different topics and themes. However, this project will be the first one within the framework of the Patrimonito-World Heritage direction. We believe that this project could be just the beginning of a series of camps in this direction, since Palestine is very rich with sites that will be included on the list.

A final and detailed program as well as the arrival note will be sent one month before the camp starts.

200 Euros to be paid upon arrival.