Friends of Community Vision organized a workshop to showcase the outputs of the field visits that the team of “Non-Violence Bloggers Bus” initiative conducted within the project “The Palestinian Consortium for Nonviolence” in partnership with PalThink for Strategic Studies and FXB France. Kamal Abu Al-Rab, Deputy Mayor of Jenin, opened the workshop. Saleh Namana, Head of Counseling Department in Jenin Ministry of Education, Wa’el Abu Hasan, Professor of Social Psychology in the Arab American University and other academics and social activists attended the workshop.  

At the outset of the workshop, Abu Al-Rab, on behalf of Mr. Jibril Rajoub, welcomed the audience and appreciated the great effort that the organization has been exerting for the sake of spreading the culture of non-violence, saying “Implementing this kind of initiatives is incredibly crucial to encourage the Palestinian families towards this culture. This is also a social responsibility that is accounted on the priorities of the Palestinian Government and the Palestinian Community Organizations; I confirm that there have to be both social and united efforts to get rid of violence and we need to work with the organizations having the same vision and strategy”  

Both Mr. Namana and Mr. Abu Al-Hasan talked about violence generally, at home and school, asserting that families have to be aware of their children’s behaviors while at home in order to contribute in eliminating all forms of violence that misleads to destroy the nature of living at home. “Not only does violence negatively affect the family, but also all society” they added. In addition, they referred to that violence could be caused because of occupation and the harsh economic situation that Palestinian families have been suffering from. Moreover, they stressed the importance of raising the awareness of Palestinian families pertaining to non-violence.

In this regard, Mr. Ibrahim Yasen discussed the most prominent objectives of the initiative, its nature and what it included of activities and projects.

The workshop was concluded with some findings and recommendations which are organizing workshops and campaigns towards raising awareness of violence continuously in cooperation with specialized organizations, activating the role of media and follow up with the cases of violence, raising awareness of families about violence and harmonizing laws with the law of child protection.