CADFA children's visit 2014

Our visit is going ahead even though we have no big funding (as we had for other CADFA visits in the past and hope to have again). We are really looking forward. 

Two weeks ahead of it and we have had so many obstacles to get past. Here is the story of the visa fingerprints.... For us, it came out OK as we were given special help and yesterday our visitors went to Ramallah to have their fingerprints taken for their visas. But it is not so easy for anyone else... anyone applying for a visa in the West Bank has to wait till the end of the year!!!! for their appointment. So we stand by what we said here....

Press statement AND Appeal for help* 10th September 2014

A new visa system is currently blocking CADFA Palestinian children’s visit to the UK due to take place in October. All visa applications from the West Bank seem currently blocked. This threatens the CADFA October visit, stops Palestinians coming to the UK, and underlines the discrimination of the Israeli occupation. It seems to mean that Israeli settler children from the West Bank can visit the UK but Palestinians can’t?!

CADFA, a Camden-based human rights charity, has been running annual children’s visits from Palestine to the UK since 2006. These visits bring Palestinian young people to meet young people from the UK to take part in exciting projects based on art, music, exploring the environment, drama. These are always very exciting and positive visits, well-received by the schools and youth groups that are involved.

The next CADFA Palestinian children's group are due to come to the UK on 1st October. The heart of these visits is always the Camden- Abu Dis link, which support the twinning links between several Camden schools and schools in Abu Dis in the Jerusalem suburb. In the UK plans for October are being put in place. These include visits to several Camden schools, the Camden and Regent’s Park Youth League and Camden Youth Council. Young people in Camden are due to hold a fundraising event towards the visit at the Calthorpe Project on Sunday 28^th September.

This year, the visit has been organised with some other small groups that are making twinning links to Palestine: Pendle, Lancashire (linked to Beit Leed in Palestine), Northampton (linked to Al Bireh) and with a group in Chester that are considering making a new twinning link.

“You can’t imagine how much these children are looking forward to the visit,” said Abdul Wahab Sabbah who is organising the visit from the Abu Dis end. “Our children don’t get the chance to travel, they are stuck between the Israeli Separation, the settlements and the checkpoints.  The atmosphere here all summer has been the horrors of the war in Gaza. It has made a real difference to young people who have been before to see something difference. This is the chance of a lifetime for these children.”

CADFA’s director, Nandita Dowson, says: “We are well used to long and complicated visa applications – In the recent past, it has usually taken three weeks to get a visa – applications go to Jerusalem without the applicants, who can’t get there; they travelled to Ramallah to do fingerprints and then their passports travelled via Amman, Jordan. It was a long system but we allowed time and the exchange visits were definitely worth it.”

However this year, there is a real question about whether the young people’s group can travel. They are currently blocked from even applying for visas as there are no appointments available in Ramallah for fingerprints to be  taken. “We have been checking constantly for available appointments,” says Nandita, “But at the moment the only appointments available in Ramallah for the next few months are on 25th December, Christmas Day!!”

Under the current system, it is now not possible to submit an application without having made an appointment. So the CADFA children’s group are busy preparing for the visit of their lives – but to date, they have not been able to submit their applications.

The Visa Section in the British Embassy in Amman, Jordan have suggested taking the children to Amman, Jordan, where there are appointments available for finger prints. But Amman is in a foreign country, and the process cannot be done in a single day. The children would have to wait for two days at best before getting the visas. CADFA are not sure that we can take the children off school for an extra two or three days to apply for a visa or that it is fair to ask them to go and stay in a foreign country or for their families to pay for hotel expenses for this purpose: none of us in the UK would think that reasonable when we apply for a visa for a short visit to another country!

CADFA are appealing for help to short-cut this long loop, let the children do their finger prints in their own country and on time to join the exchange. This will save the visit for the Palestinian kids and the UK children who are looking forward to seeing them.

There are more general questions and a wider issue. There is room apparently in Amman, so why are there no available appointments in Ramallah?  Blocked from Jerusalem, it seems that all the people of the West Bank are effectively blocked from applying for British visas for months!

How massively unfair this is. How different the system would be if they were Israeli settlers, including settlers living on Abu Dis land. Israelis don’t need a visa – they can use the local airport – they could decide to travel today and be with us tomorrow.

We are told that in Europe, human rights and fundamental freedoms are important. The basis of human rights is that they apply to everyone: there should be no discrimination against people on grounds of race or ethnic background.

But in its visa rules for the Middle East, the UK system appears to underline the built-in discrimination of the Israeli occupation. Already the Palestinian children are growing up in an apartheid system where Israeli settlers can build, Palestinians can’t; Israeli settlers use one road, Palestinians use another; Israeli settlers use civil courts, Palestinians are subjected to military courts... and now, Israeli children can visit UK children, and Palestinian children can’t?