Preliminary Workshop for the Rehabilitation of the Commercial Area in the Old City of Bethlehem

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"THE TANGIBLE AND INTANGIBLE HERITAGE THAT EXISTS FROM PREVIOUS GENERATIONS PROVIDES A LINK BETWEEN PEOPLE AND THEIR PAST"

Sunday, 01 July 2012 00:00

Bethlehem Municipality and Centre for Cultural Heritage Preservation (CCHP) held a workshop on Wednesday 11th of July at Vienna Hall in the Municipality to introduce the Rehabilitation "Rehabilitation of the Commercial Area in the Old City of Bethlehem" project, funded by the Italian Government through the Palestinian Municipalities Support Programme (PMSP).

The workshop was attended by Saleh Sobeh from Bethlehem Governorate, Ziad Al-Sha'er from Traffic Police, Jawad Abu Zir director of the Jerusalem District Electricity Company (JDECO), representatives of PPalestinian Telecommunication Company (PALTEL), and Water Supply and Sewerage Authority (WSSA), in addition to number of shopkeepers and residents of the project area.

Mr. George Sa'adeh, deputy mayor, welcomed the audience and spoke about the importance of developing the area and its facilities. In addition, he stressed out to the need for community participation in order to best accomplish this project, and thanked all society institutions especially the CCHP.

Arch. Issam Juha, director of CCHP, pointed out that this project is one of many others implemented through the Italian Government and in cooperation with the Bethlehem Municipality, which aims at developing the area and enhance it commercially and touristy. Moreover, he mentioned the importance of this project at this point especially after inscribing Bethlehem on the UNESCO's World Heritage List.

After which, Arch. Samia Murra from CCHP presented an explanation about the project, its goals, accomplishments up to now, and current problems and issues. Whereas, Ms. Mays Salsa', director of PR and Awareness Dept. at CCHP, stressed on the importance of the community outreach activities and participation, in order to plan and design the project according to the needs to the stakeholders, and viewed some of the survey results CCHP is implementing.

At the end of the workshop, Bethlehem Municipality and CCHP opened the space for discussions and suggestions from the audience, who discussed certain issues and serious problems they are facing in the area. The most important problems were the public hygiene of the area, bad implementation or planning of previous similar projects, lack of public toilets, drainage problems, and lack of parking for the public cars e projects of the Centre before and after rehabilitation. In conclusion, all parties thanked Sida and the owner of the building who was cooperative in adapting his building to serve the community and its institutions.