Transparency is not a communication strategy. It is a responsibility.

We are pleased to share the SEP Social Impact Report 2025, documenting the structure, activity, and evolution of our work over the past year.

In 2025:

• 400 previously trained SEP Artists were formally integrated into our network
• The SEP Cultural Center opened in close proximity to the Workshop and Academy
• Training volumes were adjusted to prioritise sustained work opportunities
• Production was aligned conservatively with demand to safeguard liquidity ahead of planned expansion

This report outlines our governance model, operational decisions, educational initiatives, and the framework through which we measure and document impact.

Prefer to download? Download the full report (PDF)

— Team SEP

SEP Talk — Walter el Nagar on the Right to Food

Public Responsibility, Private Action, and What Happens When the Two Don’t Meet

Access to food is not a charitable gesture.
It is a right.

At our latest SEP Talk in Geneva, we welcomed Walter el Nagar for a conversation that went far beyond headlines and good intentions. The discussion explored one central question:

Who is responsible for guaranteeing the right to food — and what happens when public institutions step back?

Drawing on his work with Refettorio Geneva and his broader humanitarian engagement, Walter addressed the fragile balance between public responsibility and private initiative, and the structural risks that emerge when essential social missions are left unsupported.

This was not a theoretical debate.
It was a timely, concrete reflection on Geneva today and on what is at stake when funding, policy, and political will fall short.

Watch the video summary

Key themes discussed

• The right to food as a non-negotiable public responsibility
• The limits of relying on private or humanitarian actors to replace state action
• Why initiatives like Refettorio Geneva cannot survive on goodwill alone
• The danger of normalising emergency solutions as permanent systems
• What it means, ethically and politically, when cities withdraw support from social infrastructure + the role of "integrity" in his mission
• What is Walter's background and what makes his personal approach unique

As Walter made clear, private engagement can amplify impact, but it cannot — and should not — substitute long-term public commitment.

Why SEP hosts these conversations

SEP Talks exist to create space for voices that challenge comfort, question systems, and reconnect culture with responsibility.

Craft, heritage, and social impact do not exist in isolation.
They require ecosystems and those ecosystems only survive when responsibility is actively chosen.

This conversation reminded us that rights fade quietly when they are not defended.

Khaki enters the SEP universe with purpose.
A Merino wool and silk maxi-stole crafted in Kashmir, defined by the keffiyeh’s iconic weave and finished with hand-embroidery by SEP Artists in Jordan.

This season, SEP introduces two styles:

1. Khaki Ibrahim

Precise lines. Clear geometry. A stripped-back interpretation of the Ibrahim motif — designed to sit effortlessly across seasons and wardrobes.

2. Khaki Ibn Battuta

A stronger silhouette anchored by the SEP Ibn Battuta border, inspired by the journeys of the 14th-century traveller.

« السفر يتركك بلا كلمات، ثم يجعلك راويًا »
“Travelling leaves you speechless, then turns you into a storyteller.”

Both styles are crafted in Merino wool & silk for warmth, fluidity and durability.
Both are hand-embroidered by SEP Artists, each one signed by its maker.
Nothing excessive. Just material, craft and impact — aligned.

Function. Craft. Identity. No noise.
Khaki arrives in two SEP signatures: Ibrahim and Ibn Battuta.

Steve Sabella at SEP Berlin: Elsewhere, Everland, and the Freedom to Imagine

In our SEP Berlin store in Prenzlauer Berg, craft and contemporary art meet for a rare moment: we are hosting an exclusive pop-up with internationally acclaimed artist and author Steve Sabella.

Born in Jerusalem and based in Berlin, Sabella transforms photography into layered visual worlds that question how we remember, where we belong, and how we imagine freedom. His works are part of major collections including the Institut du Monde Arabe Museum (Paris), the British Museum (London), and Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art (Doha), and have been shown across Europe, the Middle East, and the United States.

At SEP Berlin, we are honoured to present and sell a curated selection of his Elsewhere and Everland series – six works that resonate deeply with our own universe of heritage, movement, and identity.

Elsewhere: Reframing Landscapes, Reframing Memory

In Elsewhere, Sabella splices and reconfigures historic imagery into new, cinematic scenes through the historic photochrome collage technique. Rivers, boats, ancient streets and city walls are collaged into compositions that feel at once familiar and disorienting – like remembering a place you’ve never quite stood in, but somehow carry within you.

These works echo the feeling many of us know too well: being physically in one city, yet mentally inhabiting another time, another landscape, another version of home. They invite us to ask: when everything shifts, where does “elsewhere” begin and where does it end?

Everland: A Garden That Refuses to Fade

If Elsewhere explores the vertigo of displacement, Everland is an explosion of persistence. These works bloom with dense, intricate floral patterns, almost embroidered with colour. Layer upon layer of blossoms, leaves and pixel-like fragments create an overwhelming field of life that refuses to be muted.

For us at SEP, Everland speaks the same language as our embroidered keffiyehs and textiles: a living archive of symbols, patterns and gestures that carry stories across generations, as the pieces are created from Palestinian embroidery photographed from historic costumes. Sabella’s collages feel like digital gardens of resistance – spaces where memory regenerates itself, stubbornly and beautifully.

Art, Imagination and the SEP Universe

Steve Sabella is also the author of the award-winning Palestinian memoir The Parachute Paradox – Decolonizing the Imagination and the creator of The Artist’s CURSE  and The Artist’s CURE, a philosophy and course on navigating the creative life, which he currently teaches at the Barenboim-Said Academy in Berlin.

At SEP, we believe that what you wear – and what you surround yourself with – should reflect what you stand for. Sabella’s work transforms fragments of history into new worlds of possibility, reminding us that imagination remains humanity’s most powerful form of freedom. His collages are visual cousins to our hand-embroidered textiles: both are built stitch by stitch, layer by layer, out of stories that refuse to disappear.

This pop-up at SEP Berlin is an invitation to experience that dialogue up close: between fabric and photograph, between Berlin and Jerusalem, between heritage and the future.

Visit the Pop-Up at SEP Berlin

The works from Elsewhere and Everland are available in a limited edition of 6 exclusively through SEP Berlin for the duration of the pop-up.

Location:
SEP Berlin
Choriner Straße 59
10435 Berlin – Prenzlauer Berg

For availability, prices or private viewings, please contact our Berlin team or visit us in store.

Discover more about Steve Sabella’s practice at www.stevesabella.space.

Note for collectors. The Editions available at SEP Berlin are:

— Everland VII  — Edition 5/6 (last 2 available)
— Everland IX  — Edition 4/6 
— Everland VIII  — Edition 4/6 
— Elsewhere II  — Edition 2/6
— Elsewhere VII  — Edition 2/6
— Elsewhere XII  — Edition 1/6

Function. Craft. Identity. No noise.

On May 24th, a fashion show at 90mil in Berlin brought together designers from across the SWANA region and Berlin-based creators whose work speaks to cultural memory and political struggle, hosted by Sawa Creatives.

Conceived as a fundraiser for Palestine, the evening placed emphasis on upcycled and sustainable fashion — not just as a practice, but as a tool. Fashion here was given space to hold more than trends: to honor grief, celebrate heritage, and ask difficult questions about appropriation, silence, and resistance.

A Walking Statement

Before the runway, a panel titled “You Are a Walking Statement – What Does That Mean to You?” set the tone. Speakers warned against the trap of representation: symbols worn down into trends, rebellion styled into submission, solidarity reduced to performance, while also recognising the undeniable power of visual resistance. The challenge, they stressed, is to engage consciously with it, to move beyond “just” wearing it.

• What does it mean to design as an act of resistance?
• How can design reclaim what has been stolen, erased, or commodified?
• How do we honor tradition while also evolving it?
• Where is the line between appreciation and appropriation?

مش بس موضا | Not Just Fashion: Halalboyz

“For us, halal transcends its conventional meaning. It represents identity, heritage, and pride, all while empowering individuals to express themselves beyond societal labels of gender or sexuality,” Amir explained, representing Halalboyz, a boundary-pushing Syrian collective based in Berlin.

After October 7th, repression of Palestinian solidarity in Germany intensified. “Fashion became our way of sending a message,” Amir said. “We didn’t just go to protests — we created pieces that expressed our support for the Palestinian cause and our experience as Arabs living abroad.”

Carrying Generational Truths: Koukshol

Koukshol, rooted in Shokoufeh’s lived experience between Iran and France, uses softness and textile craft to carry “other truths: the beauty, folklore, and quiet power of Iranian women...the way people see us, people from the Middle East, is often reduced to darkness and trauma. But that’s not the whole story.”

Fashion is the language she chose because it touches and protects the body, the limit “between you and the outside world, like a second skin – it protects our very first home, but it also communicates. To me, it’s like bringing a piece of home with you, that you will be offering to the next generation too.”

Arab Futurism: Alien Youth

Algerian artist El Yusser developed the concept of “Terrorist Chic” — reappropriating Islamic and terrorist imagery, merging it with queer aesthetics, and creating disruptive silhouettes inspired by Arab futurism and rebellion.

The outcome is a blend of disruptive visuals and silhouettes, inspired by Arab futurism, iconography and queer rebellion. “The point is to be radical without resorting to reductive ideology, to antagonise both extremes of the spectrum, and to show that there is a third way beyond the polarised atmosphere that is intensifying now more and more by the day.”

Navigating Identities: Mounia.Studios

Designer Mathilda of Mounia.Studios reclaimed her Moroccan heritage after her father’s passing. “I realized maybe I wasn’t appropriating my culture — maybe I was creating a new one. I design for people like me, people in-between, who don’t fit into just one world.”

Two important points are guiding her when it comes to the question where to draw the line between honouring tradition and evolving it. “One of them is that the pieces are upcycled. It’s important that the main part of it is vintage material that already exists, and that the material comes from Morocco."

When reflecting on how to stay rooted in one’s values and how to think about cultural appreciation vs. appropriation, what guided her was realizing who she is designing for. “At the end of the day, I design for people in between spaces. I moved through my own struggle, feeling like I was appropriating my own culture, and came to the realization that maybe it’s a new culture"

Stitch by Stitch: SEP

Founded in the Jerash refugee camp, built by Palestinian women, SEP embodies a resistance of visibility. Each piece is signed by the Artist who embroidered it, reclaiming authorship and cultural dignity.

As someone with Palestinian roots, the host of the roundtable Tamara has witnessed herself again and again how Palestinian culture is stolen, diluted, or rebranded, e.g. when luxury Israeli designers walked the keffiyeh down major fashion week runways, stripped of its origins and offered up as trend. That theft didn’t go unchallenged. And SEP’s presence is part of that refusal, the message being: Resistance also happens in exactly those places we’re told we don’t belong.

The question of how to protect Palestinian culture from appropriation is something at the core of their work. “At SEP, we see the Palestinian refugee women we work with as custodians of the culture. They’re not just workers, and their embroidery is not a trend. It’s a language of heritage and resistance.” That means, the design process is co-creative and innovation happens with the artists in the community. “We use the traditional 19th-century Palestinian cross-stitch and that hasn’t changed”, explained Mary Nazzal. What has evolved is the canvas.

“When you enter an SEP shop in Amman or Switzerland, it’s a living demonstration: Palestinians are here, existing — not as victims, but as artists and storytellers,” explained brand ambassador Mary Nazzal.  She continued, “People are waking up. They demand transparency and cultural accuracy. SEP shows how heritage can be celebrated without being frozen, and how innovation can come from deep roots. That’s the future of fashion, and we hope more brands will follow.”

The Bride Palestine

The show closed with a bride symbolising Palestine, in a blood-soaked dress, unveiling a 200-meter veil inscribed with 6,747 names of Palestinians killed by November 2023. Its unbearable weight was carried collectively by designers, models, and activists.

The performer walked, and the veil unfolded behind her, while activists helped her bear the weight. But they were too few, and the names kept coming, the grief became more unbearable with each unfurling. This was the moment, designers, models, friends came running onto the runway. They lifted the veil and carried the names and the loss as a collective. Together, they refused to look away.

مش بس موضا | This Is Not Just Fashion

Fashion here transcended spectacle. It became collective grief, resistance, and memory. It asked us to imagine alternative realities — and to carry them with us.

About Sawa Creatives

Sawa Creatives, founded by Tamara Ghantous and Lara Hansen, is a Berlin-based platform cultivating creative community in solidarity with Palestine. Through fundraisers, art, and collective projects, they seek to decolonize imaginations and construct radical new futures.

“In this moment of violence and displacement, we believe spaces like this are necessary. The power lies in collective imagination, building different realities in the present.” – Sawa Creatives

Instagram: @sawa_.creatives

For costume departments on tight timelines—lead times, color matching, shipping, and continuity in one place.

Hand-embroidered exclusives inspired by the concert palette—heritage patterns, contemporary spirit.

Grateful. SEP is honoured to be part of Together 4 Palestine. For the occasion, our Artists created four exclusive keffiyehs—two large, two mini—guided by the concert’s chromatic brief.

The black & white pieces feature Flame, the Gaza declination of the pinecone motif—an emblem of endurance.

The khaki pieces carry Ibrahim, a biblical pattern—ancient in origin, strikingly modern in line.

Each keffiyeh is hand-embroidered in Jordan. Limited. Signed. No two alike.

How is a SEP keffiyeh different from others?
Each SEP piece is unique: hand-embroidered, signed by the artist, and crafted with social impact at its core. Unlike mass-produced scarves, a SEP keffiyeh carries heritage, craftsmanship, and purpose in every thread.

Who makes SEP products?
SEP works with over 500 refugee women artists from Jerash “Gaza” Camp in Jordan. They are highly skilled artisans who keep embroidery traditions alive, while earning fair income for their families.

Where are SEP keffiyehs made?
The scarves are woven in Jordan or Pakistan depending on the model, then embroidered by hand in Jerash Camp, Jordan. Each one is finished with a hangtag carrying the name of the artist who created it.

Is a SEP keffiyeh just a fashion accessory?
No — it’s a cultural icon reinterpreted. A keffiyeh offers sun protection in the desert, warmth at night, and is worn with pride across generations. SEP makes it a statement of identity and impact.

Why is embroidery important in Jordan?
Embroidery is part of the region’s cultural DNA — a language of patterns and symbols passed down for over a thousand years. SEP’s artists transform this tradition into wearable modernity.

Is SEP really an ethical brand?
Yes. SEP is a certified B Corp and every purchase supports the livelihood of the artists. Ethical luxury at SEP means cultural celebration, dignity, and impact.

What does SEP stand for?
SEP stands for Social Enterprise Project — a brand where fashion is not only about style, but also about legacy, identity, and difference-making.

How can I style a keffiyeh?
The keffiyeh is endlessly versatile: around the neck, head, shoulders, hips, or even as a bag accessory. Each SEP piece comes with suggestions — but ultimately, it’s your story to wear.

Where can I buy a real keffiyeh?
You can explore SEP’s exclusive collections at septhebrand.com or in our boutiques in Geneva, Milan, Amman, Aqaba, Berlin - our W10 London showroom by appointment - and selected global stockists. 

She served for 2 years as one of the United Nations Global Emergency Directors, and is now a principle in the Inter-Agency Standing Committee which is the longest standing and highest level humanitarian coordination forum of the United Nations System. In 2024 she was nominated to the board of ICVA by its membership. ICVA is the largest global network of non-governmental organisations.

The sudden shift in humanitarian funding is posing a significant risk to global humanitarian efforts. Medair has also been affected by these changes. Despite this, their primary focus remains on the communities they support. They are committed to ensuring that essential lifesaving services continue both now and in the future.

If you missed her SEP Talk, we prepared this short summary with the help of Warebo Agency:

What do you think these numbers represent?

Watch our summary video by Warebo Agency:

Video by Warebo Production

↳ The European states budget cuts had been announced and the NGOs were preparing for the impact. The US cuts were not gradual, they were abrupt and gave no time to plan operations accordingly. On the global level, we are talking about hundreds of millions of people who will not have either humanitarian aid or will benefit from development projects

↳ 8 countries have been directly impacted by the US cuts for Terre des Hommes, among which Kenya, Bangladesh, India, Lebanon, Burkina Faso, Afghanistan. We are talking about impact on 1.5 million beneficiaries. 440 staff members in those countries have been laid off already, because as an NGO they do not have big reserves

↳ Barbara is very concerned about LOCAL PARTNERS in Afghanistan, Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Western Africa, across Asia, who will be unable to provide the services they have been providing for many years. The consequences will be dire: social tensions, new conflicts, health issues outbreaks, increased migration

↳ Difficult choices to be made. How will Terre des Hommes allocate the lower budget? They will prioritise support to the most vulnerable, among the vulnerable

↳ Opportunities: the whole system must be re-designed. Example - Compliance and Reporting: right now, roughly every million of their budget comes with its own audit every year; Terre des hommes is currently being audited 90 times per year, by separate donors, even if a project is co-funded. Imagine a project is co-funded by 3 different Governments: 3 separate sets of reporting and audits are required. This means human resources: people have to be hired to handle reporting and auditing full time

↳ Opportunities: French NGOs created a Hub called Hulo (more info HERE), which centralises operations such as admin, purchasing and logistics for several NGOs, helping them become more efficient and lowering their budgets. Terre des hommes' Barbara Hintermann has begun talks with other Swiss based NGO's, aiming to the creation of a similar Hub in Switzerland, which might even be eligible for Swiss Government funding

For updates about Terre des Hommes activities, click HERE

This video is just a teaser, much more information on Heba's work and thinking below.

Video by Warebo Production

Heba's Talk revolved around two themes: the future of ODA (Overseas Development Assistance) and the future of the UN. We borrow the great summary written by Kelsi Kriitmaa on Linkedin after the Talk, regarding the UN theme:

↳ Article 109 of the UN Charter includes a built-in review mechanism. It was meant to be triggered within 10 years of the UN’s founding. It’s been nearly 80. Nothing has happened. The Charter was designed to evolve, we weren’t meant to freeze the system in 1945.

↳ Reform proposals are real and researched. 

↳ Veto power, granted to five countries after WWII, no longer makes sense, and in many cases, it’s being actively abused.

↳ There’s a real tension between structural reform and power reform. But the truth is, we need both. As Heba said: “The UN needs a software upgrade.”

↳ Change often only comes in moments of crisis. Yes, this wave of upheaval in the humanitarian sector has been devastating. But maybe—just maybe—it was needed. And maybe it wouldn't have happened otherwise.

Read more about the UN Charter Reform Cohalition HERE

Read more about Heba's thoughts on the UN reform HERE

Main takeaways on the “Aid” theme: 

↳ Aid donations peaked in 2023, when net ODA (Overseas Development Assistance) disbursements increased by 4% vs 2022 to a record high of USD 251 billion. Since that peak was reached, many donors have been announcing cuts : Since December 2024 at least 9 bilaterals + EU Countries have announced or are aiming to cut their bilateral aid budgets, the lower bound on this estimate is 17.2 billion over 2025-2029.   

↳ Many feel the development cooperation system is collapsing. There is no public/political support for aid in many countries. It's not just the US. The broad sense that ODA is expendable; we may be seeing a contagion effect, as falling aid further discredits legitimacy of aid spending.

↳ On top of cuts to aid – there is increased pressure to spend on other areas, notably defence. Almost all DAC donors have expanded defence budgets in 2024. Note that major donors are already exceeding their defence spending target of 2% of GDP while far off of the 0.7% target for ODA.

↳ Aid is facing a crisis of legitimacy because the North-South rationale for aid-giving does not make sense when there is no longer a clear divide between "rich" and "poor"; aid is used increasingly as a tool of geopolitics; there is a rise of inequalities in developed countries, as well as calls for reparations and a loss of trust.

↳ Interesting stats: In 2023 – Ukraine received as much as 59% of all aid to Africa; NATO Secretary General Rutte is pushing for a new defence spending target of at least 3% (from the current 2%) - Trump pushing for 5%.

↳ Emerging policy priorities: refocusing ODA on the most vulnerable; focus on policy changes that address the structural drivers of economic inequality; shift towards Global Public Goods framing; advance local ownership and people-to-people solidarity.

Read more: ODI's Donors in a Post-Aid World project: https://odi.org/en/about/our-work/donors-in-a-post-aid-world/

Stay informed about efforts to craft a new international order, subscribe to the UN Charter Reform Coalition newsletter: https://outlook.us13.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=23893ea2dfb7bd6457b60581f&id=46b4e79c2b

Video by Warebo Production

Here are key takeaways from Moira Faul: 

Traditional sources of ODA are strained and significant overall cuts of 25 % - 50% are expected in 2025 - 2026 as the United States reduces and in some cases eliminates its ODA contributions, as European countries shift priorities from ODA to defence, and as Asian countries reevaluate their ODA spending in light of these developments. 

The Swiss Development Cooperation (SDC), Switzerland’s bilateral development agency, has announced significant cuts from 2025 onward to multilateral agencies including the Global Partnership for Education, UNAIDS, UNESCO, UNDP, UN Women, and UNICEF. 

SDC has also announced significant funding cuts to the education sector to the extent that any Swiss organisation that was receiving funding for promoting basic education, such as the NORRAG center, are no longer receiving that money. As of the 1st of January 2026, there are some NGOs that are fundamentally going to disappear, others that will have to refocus and others that will continue in a very different way.

« We are in active conversations with policy makers, researchers, and educators across the NORRAG network, which spans nearly 6000 members in 180 countries, half of whom are based in the global south. And we are hearing versions of the same story from the immediate cuts in USAID: refugee education programmes are closed, clinics are shut, school feeding programs are eliminated. Thousands of local people in so many countries are now unemployed; tens of thousands of people using these services are already negatively affected, and after the next wave of cuts in European donor funding, hundreds of thousands and possibly millions more. If we want to decrease poverty, we cannot defund education ».

A word on “Reparations”: when slavery ended, the British government paid reparations … to the slave owners! And the debt incurred to fund this compensation was only fully paid off by British taxpayers in 2015. The following chart shows how aid flows into Africa make up a very small proportion of the money flowing out; and the same is true for countries in Latin America and Asia. We need to start thinking more in terms of justice than charity.

Here are key takeaways from Katherine Milligan: 

We are in the transition phase between the crumbling of our existing international development system and the creation of the emergent system. Naming this transition period between collapse and rebirth helps us visually locate where we are on this disorienting and non-linear journey (see the Two-Loop Model by the Berkana Institute). It also sparks many questions: instead of “holding on” and “powering through,” what do we need to let go of from the old system of international development?  How do we contribute to the emerging system of international development? And what leadership capabilities do we need to embody in this transition period?

The harmful ways that agencies are being dismantled, people are being dismissed, and vulnerable communities are being abandoned create a sense of moral injury for many of us who have devoted our careers to international development. Moral injury refers to sustained and enduring negative moral emotions such as guilt, shame, contempt and anger that results from the violation or betrayal of deeply held moral values. 

In addition to the moral injury, many of us feel our livelihood, our identity, and our worldview is under threat - which means that our individual nervous systems are being activated to varying degrees.  When activated by the perception of threat or danger, our amygdala takes over and mobilizes our body and emotions to respond. For the most part, those responses happen outside of our conscious awareness and might manifest as unwarranted aggression, chronic mistrust, shaming, selective mutism, numbing, paralysis, or denial, to name a few. As leaders, we have a moral obligation to cultivate a deeper awareness of our default responses when we feel threatened or are in an activated state.

The collective threat is not just activating our individual nervous systems; it is also provoking a collective activation. We can see those same responses manifesting in our team dynamics, in our institutional reactions and policies, and even at the level of the “international development system” as a whole. Resourcing ourselves for a period of prolonged collective activation starts by cultivating a calm nervous system, which allows the people around us to feel safer and function better. That safety and co-regulation ripples outward to the groups, organizations, and systems we are a part of.  

After Moira’s and Katherine's introductory remarks to a standing-room-only audience, members of International Geneva participated in a collective sense-making discussion.

Learn more about NORRAG here: https://www.norrag.org 

Read Healing Systems in Stanford Social Innovation Review here: https://ssir.org/articles/entry/healing-trauma-systems

Follow the Graduate Institute here: https://www.graduateinstitute.ch

HERE you will find the slides from the presentation

" We are the only space in International Geneva where on one day we are giving an official tour to the President of Germany, and the following days we host a workshop for 5-year old kids, to have them think about humanitarian principles and how that can be relevant in their everyday life at school"

We all learnt something from this Talk, these are some of our takeaways:

• The Museum was created in 1988 in Geneva and it serves as a testament to 160 years of humanitarian efforts worldwide. It hosts over 120,000 visitors per year, from all over the world, 25,000 of which are under 25. The Museum represents the legacy of the Red Cross founders and it keeps the Nobel Peace Prize which was awarded in 1901 to Henry Dunant and French pacifist Frédéric Passy.

• "For most visitors, humanitarian action is a piece of news, which you hear or read about, something far away; there is nothing wrong with that, but the Museum is trying to fundamentally question the idea that it is someone else's issue, far away from us and has nothing to do with you": the collection is the backbone of the work carried out around the world since the 19th Century by the Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement. "Every object we keep has had a life in the field".

• The exhibitions Pascal and his team curate are all thoroughly researched and polyphonic: from humanitarian photography to the current participatory artist residency with artist Zahrasadat Hakim, winner of the 10th Prix Art Humanité: Zahra will take over "L'Atelier," the Museum's new creative space, on March 4th. Until the summer, everyone is invited to join in free access and contribute to the creation of a tapestry.

• They have just installed an incredible glass sculpture,  "The People's Wall", a major donation, made and donated by world-renowned glass artists and designers, Monica Guggisberg and Philip Baldwin for the 100th anniversary of WW1, to celebrate that 100 years later we live in a multicultural society, that respects the great diversity of the identities that constitutes society and that we should do everything we can to preserve that:

• To be a truly welcoming space for all visitors, the entire ground floor has been redesigned in 100% circular way:  nothing, none of the materials used were "new". Everything was carefully unbuilt and rebuilt for new purposes or sourced second-hand around the site.

• Every year the Museum addresses a big social theme. Among the latest was "gender and diversity" having the Museum become the first in Switzerland to be a Certified LGBTI employer.  

• Another incredible piece received this year is a sculpture of the Hiroshima tricycle, which belonged to a little boy who was playing with it, when the atomic bomb hit. His father buried the little boy with his tricycle and 40 years later donated the original object to the Hiroshima Peace Museum; 40 years later, 2 artists, one American and one Japanese, Cannon Hersey and Akira Fujimoto, created this sculpture, which is now presented in the entrance hall of the Red Cross Museum, as a way to remind people that behind war numbers, there are individual human beings and little boys who just want to play. 

• The Museum's budget is around 4.5m CHF per year, of which around 2m funded by the Swiss Federal Government (1.1m) and the Canton of Geneva and the rest through tickets, sales and private fundraising. One day in September 2024, Pascal Hufschmid and his team realised that the Federal subsidy was due to be cut as part of a series of cost-cutting measured (the Gaillard plan) which did not require a change in law.

• To put the "missing 1.1m CHF" into context, the Museum spends 500k CHF a year to deliver the exhibitions, which enable them to sell tickets and another 500k CHF are invested every year to take care of the collection.

• " We became vocal to explain that the consequences were asymmetrical: that for us it meant closure, it did not mean doing less. Even as a Swiss Citizen, I felt an urge to have a public debate on the consequences of an administrative decision that had already been enacted by the Federal Council".

• Cost-cutting is not an option, for the above reasons and also because a small team of around 20 people only take care of a space of 4000 square meters and tens of thousands of visitors. The current funding takes the Museum to the end of 2026, after which, if no political solution is found, the Museum faces closure.

• Two parliamentary motions to save the Museum have been adopted and many politicians across the whole political parties spectrum are expressing support, giving the Museum a political lifeline, but the struggle is just beginning. Every one of us can play a role by raising awareness, visiting the Museum and through advocacy with our local politicians. 

Follow the Museum events and news HERE

Images ©Zoé Aubry

If you missed the Talk, enjoy our 3-min summary video by Warebo Agency :

We all learnt something from this TALK, these are some of our takeaways:

• • The UNRWA mandate has been TEMPORARY since the establishment of UNRWA, 76 years ago, and has been renewed every 3 years ever since.
  • UNRWA's main mandate is to provide Government Services (Education, Health), with a provision to provide also "Emergency Services" such as food aid and psychosocial assistance in times of war: "we have become the backbone of the humanitarian response in Gaza today, not by choice but because of the reality on the ground"
  • What UNRWA is not: it is not a guarantor of the "refugee status rights". The refugee status is anchored in the United Nations General Assembly resolution, so if tomorrow UNRWA were to disappear, the Palestine refugees would remain such until a solution is found for them
  • UNRWA is currently threatened at a number of levels; 2 laws passed by Israel's Knesset are respectively "preventing UNRWA from operating in the sovereign territory of Israel" and "preventing any contacts between Israeli authorities and UNRWA"; these two laws make it very hard to keep working on the ground, for obvious reasons.
  • West Bank: a number of refugee camps have been "emptied", the whole of the North of the West Bank has been affected by operation "iron wall" since January 21st: are we seeing a Gaza-ification of the West Bank? only future will tell, in the meantime UNRWA wants to continue their work in the West Bank.
  • UNWA still has 9-10 international staff working in Gaza: they were advised to leave but they chose to stay, well aware that if they leave they shall not be allowed back in under the current circumstances.
  • Unexploded mines are everywhere in the Gaza strip: extremely dangerous, especially for the children.
  • In Gaza, UNRWA have been providing approximately 17,000 health consultations every day: a total of 365,000 consultations were provided since the ceasefire began.
  • In Gaza 650,000 children have been out of school since the start of the war : the priority is to support them mentally due to the trauma they are living through, before they can be taught again (not to mention that most schools have become shelters and some have been destroyed and that the teachers themselves are traumatised at the moment); "we have gone back by 67 years and we are organising informal teaching groups in tents... "
  • Over 60% of UNRWA's budget is allocated to teachers’ salary.
  • UNRWA's overall budget is approximately 1.5bn$ per year; last year for the first time ever, UNRWA received 150m$ from the private sector including ordinary people (not governments) from all over the world, who chose to show their solidarity
  • 600 staff who left Gaza have had to be placed on "leave without pay", just a small example of the impact of tight funding. "We may have to suspend salary payment for more and scale back critical services in Gaza if we don't get more resources "
  • "The lack of funding is not due to the lack of efforts to address neutrality matters": please see UNRWA website at THIS address for their detailed address of claims versus facts
  • "Preserving UNRWA is a means to an end, not an end in itself"

More lessons learnt from UNRWA in our 3-min summary video by Warebo Agency :

A special thanks everyone who attended and to Stephanie Simpson from Terre des Hommes and Joeline Studer from MEDAIR for their help organising this special series of SEP Talks X International Geneva

RSVP: info@sepjordan.com

As such, we profoundly respect and admire the work of NGOs who have a key role dealing with humanitarian emergencies.

This is why this Christmas SEP will donate 15% of your 225€+ orders (we donate from our margin on your order, no extra donation is coming from you) to either PCRF or CHOOSELOVE:

you pick, depending on your priorities. We encourage you to read up about both NGOs and together we can help them make miracles this Xmas.

The more you shop, the more we donate.

Thank you!

Words: Maya Abuali 

For a set of threads strung together on a loom, the keffiyeh has the potential to elicit a profound array of human emotions. Ask any local in the Levant, Saudi Arabia, or Iraq, and they might say it’s simply a time-honoured element of their customary dress. But to many others, it carries the weight of so much more.

The feelings a keffiyeh evokes — hope, strife, resistance, pride, dissent, or comfort — depends on the wearer and the moment. With perspectives from historians, culture experts, and designers, GRAZIA takes a closer look at the keffiyeh’s rich past and its multivalence.

For Roberta Ventura, the Italian-born founder of Social Enterprise Project (SEP) – which employs Palestinian and Jordanian refugee women to hand-embroider modern versions of keffiyehs – her enchantment with the garment began at an early age.

“Ever since I was a child traveling to North Africa and the Middle East, I was mesmerised by the keffiyeh, whether black and white or colourful,” Roberta tells GRAZIA. “I would go into a trance looking at it… even as a kid, without knowing the history, there was something so powerful about this scarf.”

The threads of the keffiyeh we see most commonly today are laden with symbolism: the intersecting straight lines trace ancient trade routes, with white standing for hope, black for strife. The fishnet pattern symbolises a connection to the sea, while the olive-leaf pattern honours the cultural ties to the olive tree. But these stories are a mere thread in a much older, more elusive tapestry that whose tendrils reach into ancient times.

Keffiyeh’s Origins: From Priestly Regalia to Desert Wear

Dating back to Sumerian priests in Mesopotamia around 1300 BCE, the keffiyeh (or hattah) once denoted honour and status. The word itself, derived from the city of Kufa in Iraq, translates to ‘from Kufa’, though the garment eventually wove itself into traditional attire throughout most of the Middle East. Initially donned by priests to signify their rank, the piece’s significance evolved as it spread across time and space, from priesthood to parochialism.

Over time, the keffiyeh was adopted by Bedouins and farmers as a pragmatic measure, shielding wearers from the desert’s harsh sand, wind, and dust. In form, it was generally a large square cloth draped over the head and secured with a black cord known as an ‘aqal’. Though ornamental today, the aqal served a practical function: when untied, it could be used to hobble a camel’s legs.

“It was and is used throughout the Middle East by everyone, including Muslims and Christians,” Dr. Bernard Haykel, a professor of Near Eastern studies at Princeton University, tells GRAZIA. “It’s become part of the national dress in some countries and comes in different colours and patterns.”

Before its black-and-white style became widely adopted, these colours and patterns varied with each region, reflecting local pride. Communities across the Middle East tailored the fabric – usually cotton, silk, or fine wool – to their needs and environment.

Read the FULL ARTICLE HERE

"Abroad, the ’60s gave way to the era of countercultural revolutions, and the keffiyeh began to crop up far beyond the borders of the Middle East, finding unexpected resonance in Western movements. In the hands (or on the heads) of anti-war activists of this period, the keffiyeh became a deliberate signifier of those fighting against all forms of imperialism and oppression.

“For young people, it’s a symbol of equality, freedom, and human rights,” Ventura explains. “It’s not just a struggle of one people; people wear it to show who they are. It’s a way of expressing what they believe in.”

Artists like Madonna and Pat Benatar, idols of rebellion in late 1970s and ’80s pop culture, began to use the keffiyeh as their own accessory of anti-authoritarian sentiment, separate from the garment’s native origins. This Western integration precipitated a new era for the keffiyeh’s understanding, one marked by appropriation rather than solidarity."

#spottedinsolidarity 
#meaningfulfashion
#spottedinSEP

July 11, 2024

We are sad that this world needs heroes: the existence of heroes requires villains, by definition. 

At SEP, we are fortunate to work with hundreds of heroes, first among them the SEP Artists, a never-ending source of inspiration to all SEPPERS. And today, a new hero joins the family. 

Sara Mardini is first of all a very cool girl, who has a huge amount of energy and carisma and who happened to save and change countless lives as of when with her sister Yusra she decided to risk everything and embark on a trip from Syria to Europe, to leave behind the war which was raging in their home country, Syria. 

Today Sara, who has worked with NGOs and as a humanitarian, search and rescue swimmer and human rights activist ever since she got to Europe, decided to join the SEP Team, because she believes in the power of business to be a force for good and an engine of change and because she loves the Art in our pieces and she can feel the energy of the SEP Artists in every piece we make. 

Sara is now based in Berlin (for the "full story" you should watch the biographical sports drama film, The Swimmers, on Netflix as well as documentary Sara Mardini: Gegen den Strom "Against the Current") and is joining our Berlin team in our Prenzlauer Berg boutique: an extra-ordinary boutique like all our stores, where we make great encounters and change the perception of refugees, one stitch at a time. 

Delighted to have Sara on board, happy to work together to develop further our Meaningful Fashion brand, come say hello in Choriner Strasse 59, next time u are in town!

Meet Thalia Elansari, the sensational human being behind Shams, the charismatic 17 year-old star in Tima Shomali’s Netflix series “AlRawabi School for Girls” Season 2.

When we met with Thalia, we came away optimistic for the future of our world, because she represents everything that we love about GenZ: straightforward, smart, sincere, this young talent has very clear ideas about her future. She wants to establish her voice as an advocate for the collective good, standing for justice and unity, unapologetically. 

It is no coincidence that she chose to study Politics and Economics at University: so she will also develop academic tools which will help her be a change-maker. 

Born in Jordan with a Palestinian background, Thalia is a citizen of the world, perfectly bilingual in English and Arabic and looks forward to learning Spanish soon too. 

She felt the energy of the SEP Artists when she visited our Amman shop in Swefieh Village and that is how we started to chat...

I saw a SEP photo on instagram and it grabbed my attention because of how unique the brand was: i needed to know more, so I went to the Amman store.

I only work with brands whose ethos I share and whose products I love. In the case of SEP, the brand spoke to me and the idea of representing the 600+ embroidery artists from Jerash camp through their beautiful pieces makes me happy. This is why I chose to be a SEP Global Brand Ambassador.

The keffiyeh. It is an iconic accessory, grounded in history and tradition. The hand-embroidery makes each of these keffiyeh unique and their colors make them contemporary fashion statements too, that transcend geopolitics and really allow us to stay human. I love wearing monochrome outfits and then adding a splash with a SEP keffiyeh, on my head, shoulders or around my neck. I feel the energy of the SEP embroidery Artists each time I wear a piece and I think that is special.

I am passionate about the rights of refugees and especially women refugees and I hope to be able to advocate for them more and more in the years to come.