Products: Food products (olive oil, syrup, spices), olive oil soap, baskets
Beneficiaries:70 women from 3 Palestinian villages in the Galilee, Nablus, and Jenin.
 

Sindyanna of Galilee, a nonprofit organization established in 1996, is located in the Palestinian village of Kfer Kana in the picturesque Galilee region in the northern Israel. The organization, run jointly by Arab and Jewish women, strives to develop Palestinian farming and secure the Palestinian land against the confiscation by the State. Sindyanna focuses on the promotion of products from olive, the sole agriculture sector inside Israel that remains distinctly Palestinian.

The Palestinians inside Israel, who constitute 20% of the population, are the indigenous people and their descendants that remained on the land through the 1948 Al-Nakba (Palestinian Catastrophe) and became a minority in the newly-founded Jewish state. The Palestinian minority suffer from various legal discriminations, ranging from land and property ownership to civil rights. Racism and the five-decade-long subjugation as second class citizens have had devastating consequences on the social, political, economic and cultural development of the people.

Sindyanna was born out of economic need of the Palestinian farmers and their families, voiced by women members of El-Baqa Community Center, Sindyanna's predecessor in the village of Majd Al-Krum. A project to nurture economic sustainability of olive cultivation was crucial, as many Palestinian farmers faced the threat of land confiscation. Majd Al-Krum itself has lost a large area of the village land to the Jewish settlement of Tsurit.

Combining commercial activity with community work, Sindyanna functions as a packaging and distribution outlet for Palestinian farmers from both inside Israel and the West Bank to market and export their olive oil products. A member of IFAT (International Fair Trade Association) and Israel Bio-Organic Agriculture Association, Sindyanna and its products have been recognized internationally for upholding the Fair Trade practices and for the quality of the products. Today, Sindyanna's products are exported to tens of countries, including Japan, Canada, Norway, Italy, the Netherlands, Australia, Switzerland, Belgium, US and UK.   

Contact Sindyanna of Galilee
P.O.Box 35252, 61351 Tel Aviv, Israel
Tel/Fax: +972-(0)4- 6516784
Email: sindyan@netvision.net.il
www.sindyanna.com

View their products on Sunbula Online Craft Market