July 2010 Newsletter
Zaytoun on July 2nd, 2010- New stock in
- Zaytoun refinancing
- Harvest trip and tour news
- Gaza – live bullets for farmers
- Organic tomatoes and almonds
- Palestinian Medjoul Dates for Ramadan
- Ordering Zaytoun products
- Upcoming events
- Where to purchase our products
New stock in warehouse
The new container of olive oil from Canaan has arrived and all new stock of oil is now in our warehouse.
Financial support
2009 was a hard year for Zaytoun, with the Euro exchange rate, a poor harvest, and heavy investment in the Fairtrade launch all coinciding to challenge the stability of our financial footing. We’re happy to say that with the help of our board, and your continuing support in so many ways, we look like we are climbing back out of the rut. However, cashflow is still a problem for us – it’s still a challenge to find the money to put down on a new container of stock whilst we’re still paying for the last container. Your prompt payment and any prepayments you care to make all help in this regard, and also please consider a short-term loan to Zaytoun. At the moment we are planning for a couple of new orders from our suppliers, and would like to find an additional £30k from lenders. If you would like consider helping us out, with a loan of anything between £1000-£30,000 please email cathiATzaytoun.org in the first instance. Full updated financial information is available on request.
Harvest trip and tour news
The harvest tour will run from 1st – 7th November. Please check on http://www.zaytoun.org/harvest/harvest-tour/ for the itinerary and further details.
The picking trip will probably be in the middle two weeks of October. Training for this trip is due to take place on 14 August, venue to be confirmed. Inclusion on the team is by application – please email harvestATzaytoun.org for more details.
Background information on both trips can be found on our harvest page: http://www.zaytoun.org/harvest/about-the-harvest/
Gaza – live bullets for Gazan farmers
We’ve been reading a blog written by an activist in Gaza, she writes about the plight of Abu Taima’s family, who have a wheat harvest to get in under live fire in Gaza. Some of you will remember that we used to be able to get maftool from the women’s cooperatives in Gaza but since the Israeli blockade this has not been possible. We’d like to support the Gazan farmers however we can – please do check out this link.
Organic tomatoes and almonds
We are making plans to bring in organic sundried tomatoes from Canaan Fairtrade, and also organic almonds. Please look out for these items – we will be adding them to our order form in the coming month.
Palestinian Medjoul Dates for Ramadan
We are delighted to be working with Friends of Al Aqsa and Interpal in distributing Palestinian dates for Ramadan this year. The dates will be available via their offices in Leicester, Bradford, Walsall, Preston, Manchester, Birmingham and Liverpool. The dates will also be available via Zaytoun distributors across the country.
For more information about our dates please follow this link
http://www.zaytoun.org/products/catalogue/dates/
Ordering Zaytoun products
A few of you are emailing Manal’s address manalATzaytoun.org when placing orders. Whilst she can and does reply from this address to your order request, please try to place your orders through the orderATzaytoun.org address – this helps us manage our workload in the office and keep order correspondence separate.
Also, a reminder to those of you receiving deliveries to please count all boxes on delivery, before signing the delivery slip. We unfortunately cannot take responsibility for missing items if the delivery slip has been signed as all present and correct – it makes it difficult for us to follow up with the delivery companies and recoup our losses.
Upcoming Events
Friday 2nd – Sunday 4th July Real Food Festival Market Southbank Centre, London. Zaytoun has a new regular slot at this market on the first weekend of each month; come visit us and spread the word that Palestinian fare will be available here http://www.realfoodfestival.co.uk/content/view/493/147. If you would like to volunteer to help us out here please contact heatherATzaytoun.org
Sunday 4th July Liz Gentilcore will be holding a Fairtrade stall from 3-5pm,at Ye Olde Rose & Crown pub in Walthamstow. She will mainly be selling Fair Trade, Zaytoun products from Palestine and also she’s going to trial extending the stall to cover other Fair trade products, starting with Divine chocolate. The chocolate will be sold at cost price (so a bargain!) and as usual, the Zaytoun products have a small mark up and all proceeds go to her local Waltham Forest PSC group. The pub is on Hoe St, not far from the tube and High St, opposite the old cinema. This is a great opportunity and we hope it will now run monthly.
Tuesday July 13 , Frome Friends of Palestine will be hosting ‘A Taste of Palestine’. Raheesha of the Desert Divas fuses Gypsy freedom, Egyptian style and Turkish flamboyance in a sultry belly-dancing demonstration. ‘Breaking down the walls’ is the theme of Frome storyteller Nicola Grove’s act. “Stories are a great leveller”, she says, “because they are grounded in shared human experience”. Other events include a brand-new film about Bethlehem Link, the local charity that will be bringing young Palestinian performing arts students to Frome next year; a selection of pictures by local school children, produced in response to the Gaza Children’s Art exhibition earlier this year; and a range of delicious Middle Eastern food.
Masonic Hall, 7:30pm. £7.50/ £4 concessions, including food. Proceeds to Bethlehem Link. (Frome Festival Event no. 99)
Wednesday July 14 , Jewish comedian Ivor Dembina will present his one-man show ‘This Is Not A Subject For Comedy’, which charts his own transformation from pro-Israeli North London schoolboy to prominent anti-Zionist and supporter of Jews for Justice for Palestinians. Dembina’s show was staged in the Houses of Parliament shortly before the election - “the seat, the very birthplace, of hypocrisy – I mean, democracy”, as Ivor put it. “Dembina’s love for Jewish humanism and humour, and his sadness as that tradition is bulldozed by Zionism, are more sonorous than any division bell.” - Brian Logan in The Guardian.
The Granary, 7:00pm . £5 (Frome Festival Event no. 111)
Thursday July 15 , the Modern Arabic Literature magazine Banipal will be presenting ‘Arab Writing Today’, with readings by Syrian novelist Ghali a Kabbani, author of A Woman’s Morning, and Iraqi playwright Hassan Abdulrazzak, who won plaudits for his West End play Baghdad Wedding: (“Exhilarating… The dialogue is quick, sardonic, full of character” - Susannah Clapp, The Observer). They will be joined by Khyam Allami from Iraq , onetime drummer for Art of Burning Water and now a celebrated oud player. A bar and Arab food will be available.
Trinity Hall, 7:30 £8 (Frome Festival Event no. 133)
Frome Festival Box Office: 01373 455420 Mondays to Fridays: 9.30am - 2.30 and Saturdays: 9.30am - 5pm. Email: cheeseandgraintickets@hotmail.com
Please do send us details of your stalls and events so we can advertise them on the web and in the next newsletter.
Where to Purchase Zaytoun Products
Zaytoun is delighted that we now have nationwide coverage for our range of Palestinian products. The products can be obtained through a number of outlets:
Regional distributors remain the back bone of Zaytoun, both in terms of distributing products and also in terms of spreading the message of issues faced by Palestinian farmers. To find your nearest distributors please see:
www.zaytoun.org/distribution/regional-distribution
Online and retail distribution for the products has grown really well this year and this link lists online and retail outlets for Zaytoun products:
www.zaytoun.org/distribution/retail
Wholesale all Zaytoun’s products are now available through wholesalers so if you don’t see the products at your local retailers please let them know they are available through the following wholesalers:
www.zaytoun.org/distribution/wholesale
Please note these lists are regularly updated with new and changing outlets so please do check back and let us know if you would like to add new listings to this list by emailing contactATzaytoun.org
Thanks for your ongoing support,
Cathi, Manal, Rachel and Heather
Gaza – live bullets for Gazan farmers
Zaytoun on July 2nd, 2010We’ve been reading a blog written by an activist in Gaza, she writes about the plight of Abu Taima’s family, who have a wheat harvest to get in whilst under live fire in Gaza. Some of you will remember that we used to be able to get maftool from the women’s cooperatives in Gaza but since the Israeli blockade this has not been possible. We’d like to support the Gazan farmers however we can – please do check out this link.
http://gazathroughthepinktintedglasses.wordpress.com/2010/06/12/farming-with-the-enemy-live-bullets-for-gazan-farmers
The Lesson of the Flotilla Bloodbath: End the Occupation!
Zaytoun on June 8th, 20107 June 2010
The Lesson of the Flotilla Bloodbath: End the Occupation!
Sindyanna of Galilee, a Fair Trade Association aiming to build bridges between Israelis and Palestinians, strongly condemns the Israeli army raid on the Freedom for Gaza flotilla, which has resulted in nine dead and dozens of wounded.
Israel’s attempt to divert the argument away from its blockade on Gaza, and on to the resistance that its troops encountered while attacking the flotilla, is futile and grotesque. Soldiers sent to prevent civilians from breaking an unjust siege cannot be compared with 1.5 million Palestinians caught in a four-year humanitarian catastrophe!
Sindyanna asserts that Israel’s stubbornness, and its refusal to pay the price of peace — namely, an end to the occupation and recognition of the Palestinian people’s right to a sovereign state — is the main reason for the continuing bloodshed. In its suffering, the Palestinian people’s cause has become the banner of the international community.
We join the other forces of peace in our region and the world in the call for a broad-based international action that will force Israel to agree to the establishment of a sovereign Palestinian state, within the June 1967 borders. If the efforts of the current crisis focus on a compromise with Israel for investigating the flotilla attack, without bearing down on the core issues of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the region will continue to deteriorate.
Jews and Arabs alike suffer here, as do people in the rest of the world, from a ruthless capitalist regime, which discriminates against workers, and tramples over their rights for the benefit of financial tycoons. However, the political conflict merely heightens the suffering of both peoples. We believe, now more than ever, that we must work together to stop the Occupation, offering an alternative to Israel’s policy of domination by force. Now more than ever we need your solidarity so that the idea which unites us, that of a fairer world, may be fulfilled.
For more on the qonsequences of the Flotilla of Blood, we invite you to read the pieces published in Challenge’s website www.challenge-mag.com
Media in Slough Cover Producer Visit
Zaytoun on April 4th, 2010For Slough media coverage click here
When Farmers Talk to Farmers… By Meic Llewellyn
Zaytoun on April 4th, 2010Haitham Hasasneh is an agronomist with twenty years of experience in agriculture, He comes from a village to the north of Bethlehem and now lives in Ramallah, a city in the middle of Palestine’s West Bank. “We love our olive trees,” he told me when I met him in Machynlleth last week, “and our farmers know each one as an individual. I’m sure Welsh farmers are just the same with their fields, and their sheep.” Many of the olive groves – and the trees within them – are over a thousand years old, and the same Palestinian families have been tending the plantations for centuries.
Read the full article here
Coventry Telegraph: Fairtrade Palestinian Farmers Heading for Coventry Denied UK Entry
Zaytoun on April 4th, 2010Farmers travelling from Palestine to address a Coventry Fairtrade event have been barred from entering Britain.
The three olive farmers who were set to speak at Coventry’s Herbert Art Gallery today have been denied visas by the UK Border Agency.
The farmers were due to speak at a series of events during the annual Fairtrade Fortnight, exactly a year after becoming the first olive oil producers in the world to be awarded Fairtrade status.
But the UK Border Agency has refused visas for Lina Mahmoud, Belal Eid and Nahed Besharieh.
Read full article here
The Muslim News Article: Palestinian Farmers Denied Visas to Visit UK
Zaytoun on April 4th, 2010The British government is being urged to overturn a decision denying three Palestinian farmers from visiting the UK.
Lina Mahmoud, Nahed Beshariah and Belal Eid were due to attend the Fairtrade Fortnight to promote the export of olive oil from the West Bank to the UK.
The decision to deny the farmers, who are the first olive oil producers in the world to be awarded Fairtrade status, was raised in parliament in an Early Day Motion from Labour backbench MP Katy Clark.
Clarke reminded the government that Prime Minister Gordon Brown expressed delight about the initiative last year and called for the famers to be allowed entry into the UK.
Read full article here
NUS Article: Hope in a Conflict Zone: The Zaytoun Story…
Zaytoun on November 18th, 2009Zaytoun was recently featured in the NUS Magazine ‘Spotlight’. To read the full article click here
Triodos Bank: Where Transparency is the Best Policy
Zaytoun on November 18th, 2009Zaytoun is among the many ethical projects that benefit from a Triodos Bank loan to support its growth. Now Triodos is the first bank allowing anyone to see all the loans it is making. To read more click here
FT Foundations Director Says Bananas & Palestinian Olive Oil Her Favourite FT Products
Zaytoun on November 18th, 2009With the love of Palestinian Olive Oil growing in the UK, it seems it’s quickly becoming everyone’s ‘favourite’ product. The Executive Director of Fairtrade Foundation, Harriet Lamb recently said Palestinian Olive Oil is one of her two favourite favourite Fairtrade products of the last 15 years. Read more here
