Here’s a merged, smoothed version you can send to ISA:
Subject: Exploring Partnership: ISA & Mashjar Juthour Service Immersion for Emerging Arborists
Dear [Name / ISA Membership or Education Team],
My name is Sol. Over the past few months I have been working closely with a regenerative land project called Mashjar Juthour, whose central focus is to create an arboretum in Palestine.
There is an incredible story behind this project: from the ancestral ties of the family behind the vision, to the social enterprise model sustaining the work, to collaboration with the local municipality, international supporters, and educators who are helping to enshrine its legacy.
Mashjar Juthour began in 2013 and made remarkable progress, embodying intentional land stewardship and sustainable infrastructure at every stage. However, changes to immigration laws and visa statuses imposed major restrictions on skilled professionals, educators, and ex‑pats participating as workers or volunteers. This contributed to a lull in progress and a reduction in public engagement over the past eight years.
The project is held by Morgan, a US‑born academic and founder/CEO of Handmade Palestine, and her husband Saleh, the on‑the‑ground visionary and custodian of Juthour, whose family are among the historic founding families of Ramallah.
We are now developing a renewed outreach program for volunteers to support the next phases of completion. While the political context still does not adequately support Palestinians, it also does little to preserve, protect, or regenerate the natural environment, or to educate people in how to steward the land amid rising pollution and extractive development.
The land currently holds over 46 tree species, including many 100+‑year‑old oak and olive trees, an emerging food forest, and a multi‑tiered eco‑pond in progress.
I am reaching out because there is a real need to bring skilled and enthusiastic people into the ecology of this project. We are hoping to develop a program for people arriving on a tourism visa who can participate in ecotourism as visitors while also co‑contributing to the land and to their own professional development.
To do this, we are developing a structured service‑immersion and capability framework for volunteers, with a particular focus on emerging arborists and land‑care practitioners. Given ISA’s role in advancing arboriculture worldwide, we see a strong alignment and would like to explore partnership possibilities.[1]
For aspiring and early‑career arborists, a placement at Juthour provides:
We are developing a Capability & Learning Framework that integrates: