Deep-lomacy #7

Pnima Israel – putting people and their stories at the forefront of tourism experiences / Megan Turner - Assistant Director of Responsible, Community Tourism, Pnima

Tourism, especially in our present day, is much more than just coming to visit a place and take it in at face value. People more and more are interested in hearing the stories of those living in a place just as much as hearing about the history of that place. It’s these stories, this intimate interaction between people of different cultures, that inspired us to build the responsible tourism initiative, Pnima Israel, to help tourists, local and not, see and understand this complex place through the eyes of those living, changing, and improving society here.

Pnima Israel is part of a larger non-profit organization called Eretz-Ir (meaning “country-city”) that works to bring about urban renewal and innovation by encouraging community-building, social entrepreneurship, and employment opportunities in Israel’s geographic and social periphery. The challenges that present-day Israel faces are many, not the least of which is the overpopulation in the center of the country and the neglect and stagnation of cities and towns (and subsequently, the communities making up these places). Eretz-Ir believes that by strengthening the people in these periphery locations, we can encourage people to populate these areas while helping them to enjoy a high quality of life. And responsible tourism is our way of showcasing these amazing communities and entrepreneurs, allowing the locals to be the experts at telling the story of a particular place.

Take, for example, the all-female artists’ initiative, “Ve’Ahavta,” in the old market of Afula, an Eretz-Ir project. Three women, two from Tel Aviv and one local, all artists, decided that they wanted to make an intentional artists’ community within Afula. Their plan was to essentially breathe life back into this medium-sized town that was meant to be the main hub of the North, but which has experienced stagnation and no substantial growth in the past two decades. When the women entered into the market almost ten years ago, it was mostly empty, full of crime and drugs, and totally neglected. They began cleaning up the place, painting beautiful murals on the dirty walls, and opened an art gallery for exhibitions and lectures. Step by step, the market’s culture began to shift and to come alive again.

Coming to visit now makes it hard to believe that this vibrant, colorful place was once so dark and empty. All the market stalls are occupied, young and energetic businesspeople have opened restaurants, breweries, and art shops, and on Thursday nights and Friday mornings, the pathways of the market are bustling with light and life.

​This wasn’t an easy feat to accomplish, and the women are still working tirelessly to create connections between the new crowd and the locals. And they’re doing this everyday with pride and determination.

We host tours with these incredible women (and many other inspiration people from our network of communities and initiatives), and they share their personal stories, what brought them to this place, why they’re doing what they’re doing, the challenges they face, and how they’re tackling them head-on.

That’s the essence of Pnima Israel – putting people and their stories at the forefront of tourism experiences!