The objective of these business educational training courses was to foster greater awareness of marketing strategies for local products and to encourage women to set up their own business. Due to high unemployment in Taybeh it is very important to support merchants in marketing their local products and to enhance the rural economy in order to create new job opportunities.

Within the opening ceremony of the fourth annual October festival which took place from Saturday, 11th to Sunday, 12th October 2008, the participants of the workshop received a certificate handed out by Linda Saffarini, Project Coordinator of KAS, and David Canaan Khoury, Mayor of Taybeh. At Taybeh October festival, they were given the chance to show the practical results of what they had learned during the training and to offer their products such as beer, yogurt, honey, olive oil and embroidery.

The workshops supported by KAS consisted of four subsequent sessions entitled “Women in management”, “Required management functions and skills”, “How to establish your own business” and “How to market your own product”, held during the month of September 2008. They were supervised by Dr. Grace Khoury, former Director of the MBA program, from Birzeit University and included lectures from the Commerce Department of the University. This workshop was attended successfully by 23 participants from several local organizations, such as Taybeh Brewing Company, Taybeh Women’s Landing and Saving and Taybeh Cooperation for Country Development.