Experience Travel Tours
FOR A TRULY UNFORGETTABLE AND LIFE CHANGING EXPERIENCE
ETT is going from strength to strength! We have launched a stunning new website; three study tours are planned for 2015 and our expanding number of relationships with local people is reflected in the itineraries.
New website
Take a look at our new website found at www.experiencetraveltours.com where there is more information about the ETT tours that have proved life-changing for participants and that have brought hope to the local people. Once again for security reasons we are careful about the public content on the website however it gives a flavour of the richness of the unique opportunities that we provide on our visits to Palestine and Israel.
2015 tours
During 2015 we are offering three study tours: spring, summer and autumn. Travel always takes us to both sides of the divide, current issues are addressed; the latest political analysis is presented and dynamics on the ground are experienced. No two itineraries are the same.
The spring and autumn tours are each eleven days while the summer tour is eight days thus this provides an opportunity for those with less time available to still be able to participate an ETT study tour. New for the spring is a visit to the South Hebron Hills with Hamed Qawasmeh.Hamed has been working in the South of the West Bank over the past 10 years in the capacity of the Director of the Public Relations Department at Hebron’s Governor Office. He has been a Field Officer at OCHA and the Director of the UN’s Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR)’s office in the south (including Bethlehem and Hebron Governorates). We will also be connecting again with Haggai Matar, an Israeli journalist and political activist. After writing for Ha’aretz and Ma’ariv (where he became chairman of the journalists’ union chapter), he is now the co-editor of Local Call, +972′s sister site in Hebrew. He was awarded the 2012 Anna Lindh Mediterranean Journalist Award for his +972 series on the separation wall.
Each of the tours will meet Chris Whitman, previously the advocacy coordinator at Ma’an Development Center, a Palestinian anti-poverty group based in Ramallah, Chris has become an authority on what is happening throughout the entire Jordan Valley. He will take us to visit both herding communities as well as the more permanent towns.
In the autumn we will be returning to the Negev Desert where there will be a focus on Israel’s attempts to demolish the unrecognized villages who residents have struggled to remain on their land despite Israel’s refusal to provide infrastructure and services as it does for its Jewish citizens. Israel wants to move the residents (at least 70,000) to towns which many refer to as “reservations”.
Each tour will end with a cultural focus. The spring and autumn the tours will close with an evening with members of the Galilee String Quartet. In July the tour will come to a close with attendance at a cultural event that is expected to bring hundreds of Palestinians together to celebrate their heritage.
ETT is proud to announce support from the Open Bethlehem Campaign
We now have a formal link with the Open Bethlehem Campaign so during each tour while staying in Bethlehem, participants will view a screening of the new acclaimed film Open Bethlehem by Leila Sansour. The film had considerable support from our “Bethlehem Unwrapped” friends and colleagues at Tipping Point Film Fund. To reflect ETT’s long relationship with the “little town” and the way that the tours facilitate understanding of today’s reality in Bethlehem, ETT participants will also be presented with a Bethlehem passport to signify our solidarity.
Attached is the flyer with dates and prices for the 2015 tours. Please consider joining us again to engage with one of the key issues in today’s world. We also hope that you will encourage those in your network to participate in our programme. Past participants continue to remark that tours are great value for money so that is another reason to recommend ETT tours to others.
Feedback from J Meisel, Cloverdale, California and November 2014 ETT participant in response to what for her was most memorable about the tour.
I’m not sure why but for whatever reason I find myself telling the story about the Bedouin encampment in the Jordan Valley that had all the sheep and the older gentleman with his staff and the younger man with his daughter who told the story about the encampment. It is the one that has been destroyed, went to court, rebuilt by volunteers, and is now in danger of losing the toilet and the metal roof because they weren’t there before. There is something about the mindlessness of this story which grips me and makes I think for something fairly easy to relate to people.
And seeing the expanse of the Jordan Valley under Israeli agricultural control was also important. Before I had seen much less of it during our drive tto Jericho. This visit was informative in reinforcing the idea that there is no way that Israel will willingly give all that productive land away.
Of course I loved the time with Jeff. The more of that that can be included the better.
I could go on and on – but these are a few.
Experience Travel Tours (ETT) was established in 1999 and has
welcomed hundreds of participants from across the globe.
Experience Travel Tours
The Studio, Hatchetts End, Hogspudding Lane, Newdigate, Surrey RH5 5DR, England
Tel: +44 (0) 1235 764 754
info@experiencetraveltours.org www.experiencetraveltours.com