Fatima Khaldi, IWPS's half-time staff person, is the driving force behind Salfit Women For Life, the first popular committee to begin organizing against the Apartheid Wall in Salfit. Here she explains how she did it, and why.

"We will continue our work until our message flies in the sky"

In the Salfit District a women's committee against the 'Separation Fence' was established. The idea of forming this committee came when I participated in a protest camp against the building of the wall in Mas'ha village. Through the dialogues between me and the International Women's Peace Service (IWPS) we came to discover that there was no presence of Palestinian women in the struggle against the wall. Finally we decided to work together in order to make Palestinian women aware and conscious of the effect of this wall on Palestinian society, and so I communicated with PENGON and we started making workshops in Salfit and Marda. After that we continued making such workshops to increase people's awareness against the wall in the villages of Salfit district with support from IWPS.

We worked to make women see the wall in Mas'ha village, to realize what is waiting for them after building the wall. We saw that it was not enough to work with these women only so we started gathering Palestinian power in the villages located near the wall. The first meeting for us was in Hares village in the IWPS office and we took a decision to form a popular committee against the wall in the region, and so we worked every day in a new village to enable not only the women but all of the society to know what is going on around them. After that we took a decision to make a protest camp in Deir Balut village. I worked with them until we finished the camp successfully with a great demonstration.

Then we formed a group of women against the wall from different villages of Salfit district and we started our communication with different associations. One of the most important things that we have done is to strengthen the women's character and develop their skills. These movements 'The National Initiative', 'The Civil Meeting', the 'IWPS', the "Rural Centre', helped us in our work, and every Tuesday the Peace Centre in Biddia allowed us to use their centre for our meetings.

In the month of March, which contains International Womens Day, the Day against Racism, and Land Day, we planned to make a demonstration, with the help of IWPS and the Israeli women who work for peace. So we worked seriously to make this day a successful day. In spite of the difficulties that we faced as women and from the Occupying Forces who prevented the Israeli women from arriving in Mas'ha village, we were able to make the demonstration. The Minister for Women's Affairs, Mrs Zahera Kamal, was one of the participants in this demonstration and also Mrs Salwa Hdeeb. Mr Ahmed Abu Saloom from 'Sanabel Theatre' sang national songs against the wall, and a Palestinian child sang for Palestine, and some protest music was recited by one of IWPS.

Finally, we can say that in spite of the difficulties and barriers, our aims were achieved as we wanted them, and we will continue our work until our message flies in the sky, 'No for Wars, No for Violence, No for Racism, Yes for Peace.'