Bristol Computers 4 Palestine Project. - Marda Project
Anyone who has visited Palestine or who follows the news will know the extreme suffering of the Palestinian people and their country. The continual destruction of their economy results in many shortages including a lack of resources in education. Education is highly valued, but many small towns are short of many modern faculties for their schools – the lack is particularly acute regarding computers.
Bristol already has a number of links with Palestine. It has branches of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign PSC and the International Solidarity Movement ISM, an anarchist group and several faith groups. Two Bristol MPs have visited Palestine recently on All Party Parliamentary Delegations and written their experiences in the local newspaper – Roger Berry (Lab Kingswood) and Kerry McCarthy (Lab East Bristol). There are also various twinning projects in progress.
This project aims to publicise the oppression of the Palestinian people, particularly through the use of the local media – see “Media Coverage” button. The project also aims to help in a practical way by collecting and shipping recycled computers from Bristol to small towns in Palestine. There they will be used for education, youth work, and for general use by all sections of the community. Digital cameras, laptop computers, scanners and printers are also needed. But most of all money to pay for shipping costs, transport in Palestine, for repairs, software and consumables.
This project started after a Zaytoun Olive Harvest trip to Palestine in the autumn 2005. Our group stayed in the town of Marda, which suffers a high level of harassment from the Israelis. In spring 2006 we heard the town had been cut off completely by new security fences with the only road entrance controlled with a lockable gate. Organisers in Marda appealed for computers to set up a Learning & Recreation Centre in the town, to supplement the very limited resources available in the local Junior School, and to cater for men & women and all sections of the local community.
See photographs of how the town of Marda is surrounded by these new fences. - See Marda Pictures
Read more about our visit to Marda in autumn 2005 by buying our Book. - See Purchases
See more about the plight of Marda in our Film. - See Purchases
Currently (mid-2006) this project for Marda is under way. If the shipment and installation of the first batch of computers are successful it is hoped to extend the project to other towns.
More about the Marda Project
Marda is a Palestinian town of just over two thousand people situated in the West Bank (Palestine) about 40 km (25 miles) north of Jerusalem. As the photograph shows, Marda lies at the bottom of the hillside below the illegal Israeli Settlement of Ariel. The map shows the route of the “Separation Wall/Fence” in black which is being built around the hilltop, and stealing more Palestinian farmland in the process. Notice that the Wall/Fence is some 20km (12 miles) inside the West Bank at this point, a blatant intrusion and wholesale land & resources theft from the Palestinians. On the map, the “Settler-Only” road is shown in blue running east-west in-front of the town. A further security fence has now being built along the sides of this road. Marda is now cut off from the rest of the world. Everyone who lives in the town must come and go through an iron gate, which is controlled and can be locked shut at the whim of the Israeli soldiers. The Israelis are engaged in a process of slow “ethnic-cleansing” all over the West Bank. It is feared that because the town of Marda happens to be close to the settlement of Ariel it may be an early victim and over a period of time the people will be forced to leave, and the town eventually demolished.
Harassment - The town suffers at the hands of the Israeli military and from the Settlers. Marda is well known to activists from Bristol as several have stayed in the town to deter such attacks. The harassment can be gun fire from the Settlement making holes in the water tanks on the roofs, marauding gangs of armed Settlers, army patrols during the day, or at night with search-lights, army raids - particularly in the night, guns being fired and “sound-grenades” being thrown around to terrorise people.
A group of us on the Zaytoun Olive Harvest 2005 Tour stayed in the town for a week and we studied the problems. The mayor told us the grim statistics. Over the years the town has lost about a third of its land to the building of the Settlement, new roads, and now the Separation Wall/Fence. 2,000 to 3,000 olive trees have been destroyed or lost in the construction of the present Wall/Fence. Some farmers have lost all their olive trees, their only livelihood. There is now some 80% unemployment in the town. Marda has to buy water from Israel as local wells are polluted by waste from Ariel. In addition, last year, waste water/sewerage was discharged down the hillside and poisoned farmer’s fields. There is never any consultation or compensation for land loss or damage. In the wider area, Salfit, there are almost as many Israeli Settlers as Palestinians. Construction work on the Separation Wall/Fence began in June 2005. Throughout the region there were daily protests such as marches and blocking the bulldozers. This led to some 150 arrests and 2,000 injuries. People have been imprisoned, including boys as young as ten years old, for periods of days to months.
Findings - We found the youngsters were afraid to use outdoor recreational facilities, such as a tarmac football pitch next to the school, as it attracts gunfire from the Settlement and confrontations with the army patrols. We couldn’t find suitable alternative indoor recreational facilities in the town. I interviewed a youngster aged 7 or 8 who recently had been abducted by the army and held for many hours in the local army building, while they tried to bribe him to become an informer. We were told this happened a lot. I filmed one of the aggressive military patrol through the town and interviewed locals who told me they can happen upto five times a day, or at night. I was stopped at gun-point by soldiers when walking back to the town one night.
The solution - We had visited another town (As Sawiya) and a Refugee Camp (Ibdaa Camp in Bethlehem) where Youth Faculties play a crucial role in education and rehabilitation of youngsters who would otherwise be brutalised by their experiences. Such faculties would seem to be the answer for Marda. Organisers in the town have asked for computers to set up a Learning & Recreation Centre. The aim of this project would be to collect donated and recycled computers (desktop or laptop) plus digital cameras and similar IT equipment in Bristol. We have the offer of a shared shipping container to the British Council in Ramallah. The project also needs to raise several thousand pounds to cover the shipping and transport costs, to support the installation and software upgrades on the computers, to facilitate the exchange of experience and expertise of computer management and youth work within Palestine, and to support the costs of youth workers in the town. An essential aim of the project would be to support young men and the young women and all sections of the community equally though this project.
Downloadable leaflets about Marda
BRISTOL COMPUTERS 4 PALESTINE A4 two page briefing
BRISTOL COMPUTERS 4 PALESTINE A5 double-sided flier
BRISTOL COMPUTERS 4 PALESTINE A5 single-sided flyer with EP article
