Cooperative of “A Sea for Us”: Model of Sustainability and Fighting Climate Change in Gaza
“A Sea for Us”
Ali Mhanna and other Gazan young people find their way to employment through establishing cooperative for protecting and maintaining the basic element of their surrounding environment in Gaza which is their beloved sea “Mediterranean Sea” and fighting the impact of climate change . They named their cooperative “A Sea for Us” as Mediterranean passes through many countries and unifies many nations.
This cooperative aims to promote social responsibility toward maintaining this important breathing space for residents of Gaza Strip that has been under illegal blockade Israel imposed 15 years ago causing deterioration of economic, social and living condition and denying around 2.1 million people from enjoying their human rights. Facilities and parts of this cooperative provide sea visitors and vacationers with space for receiving environmental education and spending good time in enjoying theater shows and other recreational activities.
Building Cooperative with Recycled Solid Waste
Ali Mhanna, who is a theater director and actor and other young Palestinian artists established this cooperative on the beach in “Sheikh Ajleen” in west of Gaza strip by recycling solid waste items as eco-friendly tool for saving sea and changing them into sustainable materials and new products as tyers, wooden boxes, bottles, iron containers. Recycling is crucial to lessen the carbon footprint and contribute toward a healthy environment. Furthermore, recycling helps to reduce energy consumption and some of these materials are used to create green and beautiful containers and pots for planting trees and flowers.
Promoting Participatory Leadership and Community Participation
The cooperative promotes the principal of participatory leadership to engage and allow community members and organizations to take part in fighting climate change and saving environment. This approach pushed its members to communicate with many community structurers as Gaza municipality that allocated 5 dunums for the use of cooperative and other municipalities based in Gaza to provide them with items of solid waste to be recycled.
At the beginning of this cooperative, its members volunteered to develop its idea. Ali Mhanna says that “we started it as volunteers, and we started to think of how we can best use this cooperative and provide unique and better services. We could attract some supporters to support it but this kind of this support needs sustainability. Hence, we had to think of creative and sustainable sources to encourage community participation and generate sustainable income for this cooperative and job opportunities for its members”. Their source of income clearly engage people in saving their environment. For example, vacationers and sea visitors can provide voluntary work in cleaning the sea for enjoying activities of the cooperative or can bring items of solid waste here to be recycled. Some people or organizations can also provide low fees and contributions. This tool increases the awareness of visitors and people about the importance of adopting health and friendly environmental practices and behaviors during their tours on the sea. Ali says “we called our cooperative: “Sea for US”to encourage collective and community work and social responsibility towards our sea that is the only breathing space for us. we need to keep it so that we could enjoying it forever”.
Support Youth Leadership for Climate Action
Through its project of “Strengthening Palestinian young people, Particularly Young Women’s Leadership and Influence for Resilient, Just and Green Societies” within Strategic Partnership 2 with ActionAid Denmark and funded by the Danish International Development Agency (DANIDA), ActionAid Palestine supported some activities of this cooperative as support environmental marathon for children and provision of some equipment. This support aims to enhance youth leadership and engagement in leading climate action to enhance their role in encouraging their community to adopt many means and practices for increasing green spaces and saving environment affected by climate change.
Utilizing Theater and Art in Increasing Awareness on Fighting Climate Change
The cooperative includes halls, art facilities, library and garden that utilize arts and theater in promoting environmental education and provide visitors and vacationers with unique opportunity for enjoying the sea. Ali and his colleagues creatively organize recreational and sport activities to attract more visitors and vacationers to as songs, theater shows, stand-up comedy and paintings to increase awareness of people about environmental issues and urge them to keep the sea clean and make them feel that each of them has a social commitment towards protecting the sea.
This cooperative attracts many organizations and clubs to organize many trips and training courses during summer and other occasions.
Climate Change Challenges
One of the challenges youth faces in running such cooperatives is the sever impact of climate change specially the increase in humidity and temperatures during summer. In addition, working with different people on environment is not an easy task within the context of Gaza that suffers from high population density. A member of cooperative, Yahya Abu Saqer says: “we face difficulty in convincing people of the idea of the cooperative and encourage them to permanently adopt friendly environmentally practices”.
Background Information
ActionAid in Palestine (AAP) is a part of global federation working for social justice and gender equality and eradicate poverty in more than 46 countries around the world. AAP started its work in Palestine in 2007 to strengthen the resilience of Palestinian People as ActionAid believes that they should enjoy their rights to freedom, justice and self-determination. AAP implements a number of programs through its engagement with communities and women and youth groups seeking to empower them and enhance their influential civil and political participation to understand their rights and undertake collective activism to address the protracted rights violations resulting from the prolonged occupation of Palestine. AAP works simultaneously to enhance their leadership capacity and knowledge to practice their citizenship in holding authorities and other duty bearers to account.
For more information, please contact
Riham Jafari
Coordinator of Advocacy and Communication in Palestine
Mobile:
+972 (0) 595242890
Office:
+972 (0) (2) 22 13 137
Email: