Mrs. Rola Ma’aia minister of MOTA, Mr. Axel Vernhoff Sweden Consul General, Mr. Abdel Fatah Hamayel Governor of Bethlehem, Dr. Victor Batarseh Mayor of Bethlehem, Dr. Bishara Awad vice Chairman of HLT, project contractor and number of organizations representative, attended the event.

Dr. Batarseh welcomed the attendees and praised the role of each of the Swedish government, the owners of the building and the CCHP for its efforts in reviving the heritage and preserving our cultural identity and contributes to job creation.

In turn, Mrs. Ma’aia expressed her delight to inaugurate this building, which carries a lot of memories and thanked the Swedish government for its continued support for infrastructure projects and traditional buildings to be used for productive, social, and cultural and health purposes. She stressed that the preservation of cultural heritage is part of the struggle and national duty to strengthen cultural identity. Also praised the efforts of CCHP since 2001 in this area, and providing opportunities for temporary and permanent jobs and adapting buildings for community service.

Arch. Issam Juha, director of CCHP pointed out that this project comes within the "Job Creation through Rehabilitation" programme which started in 2005, and helped up to now in rehabilitating more that 25 traditional building for adaptive reuse for the benefit of the community, and created around 55.000 working days. Moreover, Arch. Juha thanked MOTA, Bethlehem Municipality, Governorate, and Swedish government, owners of the building, project contractor and CCHP staff.

In turn, Mr. Bishara Awad thanked all those who contributed to the success of this project, which demonstrates the cooperation and partnership of the Palestinian people to protect the heritage from extinction and destruction and for providing a headquarter for HLT to offer its services to the local community.  HLT thanked all those who contributed to the project success through grateful plaques to each MOTA, Bethlehem Municipality, CCHP, Sida, and owners of the building.

Mr. Vernhoff expressed the proud of the Swedish government in helping and contributing in preserving the Palestinian cultural heritage due to its importance to the Palestinian people, and praised the role of CCHP, Bethlehem Municipality and HLT.  After the ceremony, the delegation toured in the building, where CCHP presented a presentation of photos showing the building before and after rehabilitation.