Women from East Jerusalem attend a workshop on home safety
JERUSALEM – As part of the continued efforts towards empowering women in East Jerusalem, and despite some of the challenges brought by the COVID-19 crisis, the social services of the Latin Patriarchate organized yet another workshop on September 22nd, 2022, attended by ten women.
This workshop is part of a series that focuses on building women’s self-confidence, supporting them psychologically, and helping them care for their families. The project offers the participants to learn about life skills and vocational skills, in order to strengthen their capacities and help them become productive members of society. This time, the workshop was centered on home safety.
“This is maybe the 4th or 5th time I attend such workshops. I do it because they allow me to learn things, but also to take a deep breath and to relax, to stop thinking about my worries for a minute, and to spend some time with other women like me.”
Violette is one of the workshop’s participants. She lives in the Old City of Jerusalem, with her husband and children. “Life here is difficult because we don’t have much space. There’s no privacy inside and no privacy outside. Children have no places to play, we’re always on top of each other. We can’t park our cars anywhere, because there are few parking spots, and most are very expensive; our homes are difficult to reach, because of the narrowness of the streets and the many stairs. And it gets worse if you’re carrying with you three bags full of groceries! When I’m home, I always worry about something. I never have time for myself. These workshops allow me to forget about all this for a moment, to stop thinking about all of these problems for an hour or two. And thanks to them, I develop new skills, which I can use at home.”
At the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem, Dima Khoury, head of the social services department team, and Reem Khader, social worker, look forward to organizing more similar workshops, with a greater emphasis on child safety and child-related skills.
