When Grace moved to Hastings, the first people she got talking to were the local Palestine Solidarity group, when she joined their protest about that year’s attack by Israel on Palestinian territories.

One of their plans that interested her was the idea of twinning Hastings with a Palestinian town. She had experience of the effectiveness of twinning schemes because one was set up at her university, leading to very enlightening debates amongst the students about how and why they might forge links with a Palestinian community.

She says twinning is a particularly egalitarian activity, putting people in touch with each other, leading to mutual education and exchanges of many kinds. Two years down the line, Hastings and Rye PSC have chosen a town they feel has something in common with our own town. It is Al-Mawasi, a coastal fishing town in Gaza.

Building the connections necessary to a twinning application have already given Grace some interesting and, lately, heart-rending experiences. Grace has been in regular contact with Naheel, who is the main organizer of a Community Centre called ‘Safe Space’ in the town. As well as more general facilities to help the local community, such as equipment for internet links and online teaching, the Women’s Project at the Centre was teaching various crafts, working towards running a café and a shop on the beach to sell their work.

Sadly, all those projects are on hold now. Nowhere in Gaza is currently a ‘Safe Space’, and most of the people have left seeking safety. The Centre has been bombed, and Hastings and Rye PSC are receiving desperately worrying messages from their friends there.

If you would like to help, there are buttons on that page to donate to the Centre. Last time I spoke to Grace, the banks were closed and the women were having to buy food and supplies with promises of payment to come.

Shu’fat

Although the news is full of it, it is not only Gaza that is being attacked. A while ago, I wrote about the Shu’fat delegation that came to Hastings. Shu’fat is a walled-in Palestinian camp near Jerusalem. The Community Centre there, which had a lot in common with the Al-Mawasi one, is also currently closed, due to Israeli actions in the camp being a severe danger to anyone moving around. The collective punishment Israel is inflicting on Palestinians is in evidence everywhere that there are Palestinians.

Why twinning helps

Up and down the UK, people are going on demonstrations and/or getting into arguments, as we all try to understand what’s happening in Palestine, and how our country might help. In Hastings, the easiest way to find out more is to talk to someone like Grace, who can tell personal stories received first-hand from her friends in Al-Masawi. Forging personal links is a far more efficient way of finding out about how things are, and what people are thinking. In Hastings, many of us already know this because of our Friends of Sierra Leone project, led by Cllr Nigel Sinden, and through the phenomenally successful Hastings Refugee Buddy Project. All in all, this would be a great time for Hastings to consider a twinning project such as the one Hastings and Rye PSC are proposing.

If you’re in Hastings, please support the Al-Masawi twinning campaign. If you’re elsewhere, please look into doing something similar in your town.

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