So we started our day today with a tour of the Sindyanna Factory in Kafar Kanna near Nazareth
where we've been saying. And firstly we met Hadas who is what at the founders of Sindyanna
and she introduced us to all the team that were working there so they have the organic olive oil
also the extra virgin Fairtrade which is what we buy. The oil is stored in big plastic containers
of a thousand litres which is 980 kilograms roughly, they have air conditioning units to
make sure the room stays below 20 degrees celsius to really maintain the optimum quality of the oil.
Here we have the last Lush order for extra virgin Fairtrade the olive oil. And we
managed to taste the olive oil that they make the really fresh olive oil literally weeks old so we
had it with za'atar which is a special spice mix that Sindyanna also produce, we had it with
homemade cheese that the Palestinian women had brought in for their break and it was a really
good time with the different women who all work there talking about house Sindyanna has
improved their lives and that is good to eat and also hear a little bit more about them too.
The most exciting part of today was actually being in the groves, because it was a whole family affair,
we harvested the olives. They were all hand harvested, so either picking the individual olives off or
using what can best be described as a rake to comb the olive trees and the olives would fall down onto
nets where they'd be gathered. There's something really therapeutic about the repetitive motion of
it, very calm and it's such a beautiful surrounding as well, no noise, just everyone working together.
The olives are delivered by the families in containers to the pressing house and they
go into a holding dock which has a metal grate underneath that allows the olives to
sift through and they then go onto a conveyor belt and at the top, they're rinsed with fresh
water to remove any debris or bits and pieces of dirt and also to help separate the leaves. The
olives then go into the pressing tank where they are cold-pressed to remove all the oil
and then there's a process about 45-minutes to really separate the oil from the stones and the
remainder of the olive flesh and the oil gets fed into a tank where the final process
takes place and here any remaining water is removed from the oil, so if you're left with
a beautiful pure, fresh olive oil. Even though we don't need to taste it cause it goes in shower
gel and moisturiser, it's still but the same characteristics, you know people say Lush is
good enough to eat this time, it actually was.
So the profits from Sindyanna and the produce that they sell; so the olive oil which we buy, it all feeds back into the visitors centres. It was really good today to
spend the afternoon with Oznat who's a Jewish Israeli and Waheeba who's a Muslim Palestinian
Israeli. They're working together creating a space where women from all over this area
Jewish and Palestinian can come together and learn different skills, learn from each other,
we saw Hebrew lessons we saw a weaving lessons and even international people were there. Only 20% of
Arab women in Israel work 80% are unemployed and within the 20% that work they usually do
it with very bad conditions. We've opened this place and we had seven women from the village
from Kupfermanda Arab women without no job coming here and weaving baskets learning how to weave on
each basket you can see name of the lady who made the basket and the price of the basket around 80%
from this the the price goes to the lady and 20% goes to the women centres box we call it, so even
if one lady does not sell as much basket as her friend she still can enjoy the group activity.
Waheeba was the first one of the first ladies that learned with the basket student she's a teacher.
It gave me more self-confidence, it's better for me especially if
I look back before I came here. So the visitor centre is kind of gaining a reputation of being
a peaceful place, a place for communication and understanding where there hasn't been
much. Inside of Israel there is the Jewish population and the Arab population and we have
different schools different villages different languages and the everyday life we don't
have chances to meet, so this place for me I started to call it a green house of peace.
So we're here in Raqqa where Sindyanna has been new project the olive trees are about
a year and a half to two years old now but hopefully in two years time they'll
be harvesting the first olives from the grove for olive oil to go into our products. One of
the reasons Lush is supporting Sindyanna is not just because it's excellent oil it's
also because it's such a unique project that's bringing two people that you would
think are hostile towards each other, in a very natural and affirmative way, working together