Founded in Jerusalem in 1996, Sunbula is a Palestinian fair trade organization that creates income-generation and development opportunities for low income craft producers. We partner with 24 community groups whose members include women, refugees, people with disability, members of minority groups and small-scale farmers. By assisting our partners in every step of a livelihood initiative – product design, training, and marketing via our Jerusalem stores and online shop – Sunbula strives to ensure its sustainability.
These economic opportunites help women in particular, enabling them to take charge of the household economy, play a more prominent role in the community, and make possible better education for their children, especially their daughters.
Sunbula also works to preserve artisanal heritage by incorporating bygone techniques into today’s designs. The lesser-known stitching techniques of historic Palestine have been documented in Sunbula’s 2019 publication “Seventeen Embroidery Techniques from Palestine: An Instruction Manual”, which culminates years of field and museum research.
Sunbula’s outreach and development work is donation funded. Please consider a contribution to our Annual Fund this holiday season. Your gift will help us continue to provide dignified employment to artisans in marginalized communities across Palestine.