Anat Women Folk & Cultural Center

Established in 1993 in Bethlehem’s twin town of Beit Sahour, the Anat Palestinian Folk and Crafts Centre was the first training and marketing centre in the southern region of the West Bank for women’s handicrafts. The Centre seeks to provide opportunities for Palestinian women aged 15-80 to be self-reliant and economically independent by employing and training them in cross-stitch embroidery.

The Centre also provides both local and international markets for hand-made crafts of all kinds (including embroidery, greetings cards, woven carpets, glass and pottery) produced by more than 1,200 women from self-help groups, co-operatives, refugee camps and women’s committees around the country.

To this end it organises the display and retailing of many of these items both in its own premises and in other cultural centres in the area, as well as seeking to create a cultural folklore connection with Palestinian communities in the Diaspora. The Centre also organises sessions and workshops on different themes for women, including communication, grassroots management, gender analyses and civic engineering within its various training programmes, and provides teaching courses in foreign languages.