CESIE, partner of the InnovAgroWoMed project in Italy, has collected for you some very relevant and emotional testimonies of beneficiaries who participated in the Winter Women Camp of the project, held in March 2022. Today we start with the experience of Sofia...

"The Winter Camp in Jordan came all of a sudden, not because we hadn’t been informed before, but due to a sort of fear of dreaming of it too intensely, considering the current situation. 

I had never really thought about the days on the Dead Sea; I was indeed expecting a week filled with lessons, a lot of time devoted mainly to learning and not that much to interacting and getting to know each other. 

Luckily I was wrong since, today, I can affirm that what I successfully brought back to Italy is the friendship, the appreciation and the desire to collaborate that we created with other participants, both Italians and from the other partner countries. 

The days in the Dead Sea have passed too fast, mingling interesting conferences and convivial moments. I could never imagine the great difficulties that, for instance, our Tunisian, Palestinian and Jordanian colleagues have to face every day to pursue their business and professional projects. A patriarchal mindset is widely accepted and supported by laws and norms that authorise and sponsor the status quo, creating obstacles that are hard to overcome. What for us is part of an obsolete yet still current mentality; is a daily fight for them. 

Spanish women, instead, share an entrepreneurial and professional context similar to ours, but their dynamic and enthusiastic attitude is unique and a source of inspiration, in my opinion.  
Another aspect that caught my attention is the creativity with which our colleagues manage rural lands characterised by water scarcity: their inventiveness and determination are something we should learn from, especially here in Sicily. 

I recognised some similarities in us: the willingness to do things, challenge ourselves, and go beyond our comfort zone. Even though we come from different places and social contexts, this inner strength uniting us all was clear from the very first day and became more potent in the following days. 

In the beginning, Dahlia, Shaima, Rocio, Marta, Maria, Salvina, Davinia, Jiaqing, and Amelia were just names. Then they became smiley faces with whom to talk and share ideas and projects. Today, we are thinking about creating a joint project running parallel to our personal ones along with some Spanish and Palestinian women: even though our ideas are far from being clear, we will try to do something beautiful as soon as possible. 

Another positive surprise of this journey was the group of Italian women. We have been through months of distance learning, and I managed to get to know only some of them better, but I still felt somehow distant from them. As it often happens in this kind of group trip, I had accepted that I wouldn’t get along with all of them. Well, even in this case, I was wrong. 

We managed to create the right chemistry that I feel I brought back to Italy, and I do hope it will last in the future, consolidating what I think I can legitimately call friendship". 

More videos and pictures of this event are available on the facebook page of the project. InnovAgroWoMed is a project co-financed by the European Union within the Programme ENI CBC Med