|
Trending Topics
|
Foreign Interns Keep Gaza-Periphery Dairy Farms Afloat
(Times of Israel) Bernard Dichek - Dairy farms along Israel's Gaza border have been supplying milk uninterruptedly since the outbreak of the war on Oct. 7 owing to a small cadre of staff that remained behind, as well as university students from Africa and Asia. "Without our agricultural interns from Ghana and Tanzania we would have had a hard time milking our cows and feeding our calves," says Gabo Altmark, the manager of the Kibbutz Zikim dairy farm. The students were offered the opportunity to relocate, but unlike Zikim's foreign workers who were quick to leave, the students insisted on remaining. "Because of the good treatment and support we received in the heat of the war, we decided to stay," says Kwabena Frimpong, 28, from Ghana. More than 3,200 university students from 30 countries in the developing world are training at farms across Israel, including 92 from Indonesia, which does not yet have diplomatic ties with Israel. About 250 were on farms near Gaza. "My mother has called me every day since the war began," says Phearan Ke from Cambodia who works at the Kibbutz Gvar'am dairy farm. "I explain that my year here is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and though the situation was tough for the first few days, now that soldiers patrol the kibbutz we feel quite safe." Unlike the temporary foreign workers who usually come from small villages and have a limited education, the agricultural interns are all university-educated and many are aspiring entrepreneurs.