Olive Tree Initiative Fundraising Campaign

The Olive Tree Initiative is an exciting and innovative educational initiative at the University of Glasgow which is run in partnership with the University of California, Irvine.
 
The Olive Tree Initiative is designed to introduce students to the study of conflict by means of academic study and a field trip to the Middle East (Israel, Palestine and Jordan) where students meet with a wide range of parties to the Arab-Israeli struggle.  This experiential learning focus constitutes an innovative form of teaching practice on conflict analysis and the focus on the narratives of conflict in the region encourages students to engage with the complexity of the situation.

Following the classroom-based module, students will visit the Middle East (Israel, Palestine and Jordan) during the summer.  Over the course of three weeks, we visit historical, cultural and religious sites and meet with approximately 70 people involved in and affected by the conflict in some way.  Former speakers have included the spokesperson for the Israeli Prime Minister, coordinators of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, representatives of the security forces, members of the Palestinian Legislative Council, bereaved families, representatives of NGOs, local residents, journalists, political pollsters, and business representatives.

The field trip is expected to have a profound impact on all the students; not only on how they perceive the conflict, but more broadly on a personal and spiritual level. Meetings with Palestinian Christians and how they experience the conflict on a religious level are also part of the programme, and the visit of major religious sites, experiences such as hearing the Lord's Prayer in Aramaic, the language of Jesus Christ, and the witnessing of historically and religiously significant events have indelibly marked previous participants of the programme.