Domari- Gypsies

Today, Friday (Shabbat) Kaytlin, Alex, Erin and I went to the Domari Gypsy enrichment center for the empowerment of women (yeah, long name). This group of Gypsy people live in East Jerusalem and are not culturally accepted by either Arabs or Jews. Historically they originated in India but now live in little groups all over the Middle East and Eastern Europe. Traditionally the Gypsies were a nomadic people who lived in tents and traveled around practicing their different trades of art, music, and crafts. A generation or two ago, the Gypsies of Jerusalem still lived in tents but because it is very hard to make a living in their traditional fashion they have had to settle down and now live in low income housing and are trying to learn new ways to earn a living besides what has been passed down to them.
The purpose of the Domari center is to preserve the traditional Gypsy culture while encouraging them toward further education and helping them to improve their economic status. The center strives to do this by helping them make and sell their traditional crafts (bags, jewelery, scarves, etc.) as well as helping with learning English and homework. They also provide a safe community for the women and children to come and be accepted and celebrate their unique and different culture.

JUC students volunteer at the center when we can (some once a week, I'll be going every Friday now that Ramadan is over.) Today we started out by doing some clean up to the outside of the center so it would be all ready for more visitors.

We kinda filled the neighborhood dumpster with all the trash we picked up...hope tomorrow is pick up day (-:

Then we spent some time hanging out with the kids. Kaytlin and Alex did homework help while Erin and I did craft time and conversational English.

I got coloring duty with the two littlest cuties
*tickle, tickle, tickle, scream!*
Beautiful...and smart! This darling 6 year old recited the first three pages of her English homework to me instead of actually reading it...what can you say?
She got a little pouty when it was time for us to leave...