March 2010
3 posts
“Rain helps the Bedouin Gardens in the Sinai mountains.”
There is a new spirit of energy in the orchard, mountain gardens of Sinai. Everywhere you walk now in the wadis there are Bedouin working, mending their walls, planting vegetables, digging places for new trees or repairing their wells.
The recent rains have helped - two good downpours one in January and one in February which filled the small dams the Makhad Trust have built. This...
January 2010
3 posts
“Great Start for 2010”
We have just heard exciting news from Sinai that after heavy rainfall in Egypt on the 17th January the dams that the Makhad Trust has constructed are now full of water. Our Sinai Manager, Mahmoud Ahmed tells us that all the people in Sinai are happy!
It has not rained properly for 5 years and the land was parched with gardens dying. Last year in February there was a little snow but no rain -...
December 2009
3 posts
“Historic Meeting of Bedouin Tribes”
An historic gathering of the 7 tribes of Sinai is planned for 21st November 2010. There has not been such a meeting since 1986 and the Bedouin are excited at the prospect of being able to meet together under one symbolic tent and discuss the way they can co-operate and protect their traditions and culture.
At a preliminary meeting of 3 tribes at the Nawamis site, with more than 85 people and 3...
October 2009
3 posts
“Nawamis Construction Continues”
Lees Met University have done it again! A sponsored abseil raised funds for the Nawamis School Complex and 15 students and staff came out to Sinai to work on the project.
The main school and visitor centre buildings have been completed so the staff and students worked on the semi-circular camel station which also forms a barrier in the event of a flood. The inside of the camel station...
August 2009
3 posts
“Weaving the Nawamis Tent”
On December 2nd 2009 the Makhad Trust friends and supporters will gather at Nawamis in the South Sinai desert for a celebratory party to raise the largest ever woven Bedouin Tent.
This tent will become a unique venue for local camel festivals, parties and visitors. It will raise the economy of the Nawamis settlement and help the villagers to support their new school.
And so the work is...
July 2009
3 posts
“Joan documents the weaving of the world’s largest hand woven tent”
“I became interested in the Makhad Trust after a short working journey in the desert and mountains of South Sinai and was delighted to be asked to participate in the making of a film for them. My own background is in photography and the making of short films.
I travelled to Sharm El Sheikh from my home in Waterford, Ireland to carry out a recce for this documentary film which was to be...
May 2009
3 posts
“Sara Duckworth’s fundraising for the Makhad Trust through Justgiving”
I became interested in the Sinai trip to help build a school when I saw it advertised through the Community Partnerships and Volunteering Department of Leeds Met University. I’d wanted to get involved with some international volunteering for some time and thought the project looked really worthwhile. I liked the idea of helping the Bedouin create and develop a part of their local community...
March 2009
3 posts
“Leeds Metropolitan University help to build Nawamis School in Sinai”
A group of students and staff volunteers from Leeds Metropolitan University have just returned from a week in Sinai where they were helping the Bedouin to build a school. The week was a continuation of a larger project to create a community ‘hub’ for the villagers of Nawamis which will incorporate a school, camel station, weaving centre and the largest hand-woven tent in the world....
January 2009
6 posts
“Weaving the Dream”
“The Dream” is our project to create the largest woven tent on the planet as a global ‘meeting place’ to celebrate the spirit and wisdom of the world’s nomadic peoples.
Over the next nine months hundreds of Bedouin women from seven tribes in the heart of the Sinai Desert will gather hair from thousands of goats to weave one of the largest hand-made tents on Earth. ...
“The Desert School: progress!”
During the last months of 2008 Danny Shmulevitch, the founder of Makhad Trust, worked with volunteers and local villagers in building and developing a School. The School belongs to the Bedouin community of Nawamis in the South Sinai desert.
The villagers had already constructed a small one-roomed school building themselves but had asked us for help in setting up equipment for the school and in...
November 2008
3 posts
“A remarkable achievement - Two Carob Tree Dam”
Ten volunteers from the United Kingdom, with the friendly co-operation of Bedouin helpers, have built a substantial dam, 27 metres wide, in the mountains near St Katherine’s, Sinai.
The group included both men and women, with a wide range of ages. Few of them possessed building skills, but all were able to carry building materials and mix cement ready for the five skilled Bedouin builders.
...
October 2008
6 posts
“A dream comes true”
This is a class of Bedouin women at Fansina’s Craft Centre, and a new project for Makhad.
When the women’s training is complete they will be able to teach literacy skills to other members of their community. It is an exciting new venture for the Makhad Trust, which is funding a CLE (Concentrated Language Encounter) programme for them.
CLE is an immersion method of teaching literacy,...
“An adventure in Sinai for two brothers”
Jack and Tom Rickard from Gloucestershire have gone out to work on our projects in Sinai. Their strength and enthusiasm will be much welcomed by the Makhad Trust group from UK and the Bedouin who are building Two Carob Tree Dam. This is a vital dam which will help over 50 of the orchard gardens lying below it in Wadi Itlah, ‘valley of fruit trees’.
After building the dam the two...
August 2008
6 posts
“A special case for widow women”
It is mostly men who come to us for help with their mountain gardens. The water table in the mountains has sunk and garden wells must be made deeper. But Faraj Mahmoud our Jebelia adviser recently told us, “We should give special help to widow women”.
There are not so many but it is hard for them to make a living without their husbands, the traditional breadwinners. Sobheya for...
“I have done all I can, it is in God’s hands now!”
Sala said these words to us in his garden in Sinai. He had no water in his garden when we visited him this time last year - not even for tea, the traditional welcome.
He was very sad when we first met, feeling that he had let down his father who built the garden and his children who would inherit it. The garden has been his life since he was a young boy. Here he lived and grew up.
The...
July 2008
12 posts
“Owed can save his garden for his children”
Owed Nassr Fatia has received full sponsorship for his garden well thanks to the efforts of Gail Simmons and her friends.
Owed is a very sick man on kidney dialysis. He is also a poor man but in spite of offers has refused to sell his garden. He told us “Money is soon gone, but a garden is for my children, it is for life”.
Owed cannot easily climb to his mountain garden but he...
“Climate Change – Build a dam and help to preserve water”
