Edinburgh Right to Education Week exhibition

"It was a long journey and a good journey"

Well that was a great visit. Many thanks to Asmaa, Semma, Beesan, Abed, Mohammed and Sameeh. You put up with lots of travelling and new places to stay and gave great presentations -there has been excellent feedback. You've impressed hundreds of people in all the places you've been and made so many people think....
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We did a review of the visit before people left, and overall the visitors were happy with the arrangements - They appreciated the support they had, and were imporessed with the number of people here working on the Palestinian issue. They asked us to keep our twinning work going and went back with a number of action points - among them to bring the Palestinian side of the Twinning Network together with the Right to Education campaign, so that university twinning and town twinning can support each other effectively both in Britain and in Palestine.
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The time flew by, and there wasn't much time to get anything on the blog. It would still be really nice if people put reports on, or photos: it doesn't matter if it is after the event - we know people are still looking at the women's blog even though it is six months ago. If you'd like to be added as an author to this blog, please let us know on

visits@camdenabudis.net

Camden: An evening with Ken Loach

Day off by the Thames

From Edinburgh

From Glasgow

It was fantastic to meet Semma, Rose* and Ramy today. We all felt very honoured that they would travel so far to share their experiences with us. The meeting was great - everyone was keen to contribute and ask questions at the end. It was Strathclyde's first AP meeting, but one that will be hard to match as the speakers were truly excellent. Well done to everyone who is involved in organising this, and I wish you all the best for the rest of the speaking tour. Hope to meet you again! Best, Lucy and everyone at Strathclyde Uni Action Palestine (in Glasgow) x

(*PS I think this meant Asmaa??)

Getting going

Started in the dark... then the day moved from damp to windy but sunny. Journeys started all over the country... Glasgow, Edinburgh, Nottingham, Tower Hamlets, Camden... and very much looking forward to hearing how it goes.

THANK YOU to the big team of people, most of them not knowing each other, who are helping with this visit.

FIRST FEEDBACK from Semma and Asmaa and from Lucy in Glasgow was that the presentations in Glasgow went very well indeed.

Twinning talks

Tuesday 18th:
Nottingham
Glasgow
Edinburgh

Weds 19th:
Leeds
Cambridge
Camden
Islington

Thurs 20th:
Birmingham
Camden
LSE
SOAS
* and film with Ken Loach, East Finchley*

Fri 21st:
Oxford
Goldsmith's College
UCL

Sat 22nd: TWINNING CONFERENCE, SOAS London

Sun 23rd:
Hackney
Bromley

Mon 24th:
York
Liverpool
Manchester
Luton

Tues 25th:
Staffordshire University
Watford

Great news! They are here

Beesan, student from An-Najah Uni, Nablus

Semma, student from Birzeit Uni, Ramallah

Asmaa, student from Hebron University

Sameeh, who works for Palestine Medical Relief, from Beit Leed

Mohammed, student from Al Quds Open University, Jenin

Abdul Wahab, who works for CADFA in Abu Dis

ALL HERE and now I hope asleep, must be exhausted.

Thank you to whoever chose the students - they are really great (and of course those who are not students are great too - they are old friends so no surprises there). They have taken their presentations seriously and are already enjoying themselves it seems.... I am really looking forward to hearing what they have to say, and if you are reading this and one of their talks is near you, I think you should go....

Photos from the Tube on the long tired journey into London...

Bad news

Devastated to hear from South East London that their two delegates to the Twinning conference, farmers from Beit Fourik, have been refused visas by the British Embassy in Amman. They are doing what they can and haven't given up hope of seeing them here, where lots of people are waiting for them. They are meant to be leading one of the workshops for the conference.


The main twinning network tour visitors are on their way, meanwhile - they must be on the plane by now.

Good news

The twinning visitors are on their way... Now in Jordan!
The first good news is that Abed is with them - We didn't buy him a ticket before because we didn't know he would be able to! He has previously twice been prevented by Israeli border guards from crossing into Jordan - and his twinning group (CADFA) have written hundreds (really) of letters in protest, trying to get this overturned. It is great news that this has now happened and now we are really looking forward to seeing him and all of our new friends in London very soon!