Academy for Educational Development
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Jozoor: Helping Palestinians Grow Roots
Jozoor: Helping Palestinians Grow Roots Young Palestinian men living in rural areas are generally passed over for international aid. Because they have few resources they can use to better their lives, they are more prone to turn to violence. Hisham Jabi saw this happen to his countrymen too many times.  Born and raised in the West Bank city of Nablus, Jabi has devoted his life to creating ways Palestinians can better their lives. While he was an MBA student at Claremont University, which he attended through the help of USAID's Higher Education Support Initiative, which is managed by AED, Jabi partnered with two of his fellow students—one an Israeli-American and the other a Jewish American—to form a non-profit organization called Jozoor. Jozoor, which means “roots” in Arabic, provides young Palestinian men “micro-credit” and business training in order to help them build successful lives. For example, a tradesman who loses his job because travel restrictions prevent him from entering Israel could get a small loan from Jozoor to set up his own shop closer to home. "This is not charity," Jabi told the San Francisco Chronicle last year. "They have to make monthly payments. But he might hire someone to sweep the floor…. You're giving life to people who are dead." Jabi and his business partners are now trying to raise money to pilot their program in Sulfit, a village in the northern region of the West Bank. The people they are hoping to help “are just sitting around, playing cards, drinking coffee and waiting for the second invasion of their towns," Jabi told the Chronicle. "They are prime targets for recruitment by terrorist groups." Jabi is just one of almost 100 students from the West Bank and Gaza who have gone through the HESI program to earn Master’s-level degrees from universities in the United States. |
