For most members of the Platform, this is the first time they have been involved in public activism, and therefore, education and training are of crucial importance for the future success of this grassroots initiative. So, in spring and summer 2007, Sawt el-Amel implemented a pilot project to offer leadership training sessions. For instance, one training session began with Sawt el-Amel's director giving practical advise on labour and national insurance issues. A female attorney provided background on the history of the struggle of working women and an introduction to labour law in Israel. Media awareness training was offered by I'lam - Media Centre for Palestinian Arabs in Israel. During this process, a new branch of the Women's Platform was established in the village of Majd el-Krum in the Galilee, with a core group of 10 activist women from the surrounding villages.

The Women's Platform also organises various field trips and solidarity visits to learn about their colleagues' social and economic struggles, and to encourage women to band together to speak out for their rights. Some of their site visits are also conducted as part of structured campaigns. For example, on the occasion of World Day for Decent Work (October 7 2008), Platform members distributed information brochures inside textile factories. (According to Sawt el-Amel, a major problem among Arab women textile workers is the lack of organisation and trade union activity, resulting in low levels of awareness about their rights as workers and a high fear factor). As part of this work, the Platform's grassroots activists seek to catch the attention of textile workers, then to motivate them to attend one of Sawt el-Amel's information events. At such gatherings, participants learn about labour law and social security regulations. They are made aware that it is possible (and necessary) to seek compensation for past violations of one's individual rights as a worker. They are urged to talk to colleagues and friends, encouraging them to be more assertive of their rights - individually and as a group - by joining in the work of the Women's Platform.

Women, Rights, Economic Development.

According to Sawt el-Amel, most of the approximately 30 million textile workers around the globe are women. In the past decade, more than 30,000 textile workers lost their jobs in the Israeli textile industry, and most of them are Arab women. The textile industry has been the main source of employment for Palestinian Arab women inside Israel since the rapid industrialisation during British-Mandate times (1920-1947); "[t]he nature of the textile and garment industries as a highly labour-intensive trade traditionally occupied by women has always abetted exploitation and inequality." Qualified Industrial Zones (QIZs) have been established that provide cheap labour and tax and quota-free export to the United States for joint ventures between Israeli and Jordanian companies. As a result, the Israeli textile industry was largely outsourced, leaving the local workforce – predominantly Arab and new immigrant women – unemployed, and in many cases also without social protection, such as severance pay and pension insurance. A Jordanian government report from 2006 confirmed workers-rights violations in the QIZs, stating that inspectors found sub-standard conditions in housing, sanitary facilities, and workplace safety, as well as nonobservance of holiday and overtime pay. Thus, the remaining textile workers inside Israel face tough competition. Sawt el-Amel has handled close to a hundred cases for textile workers from the Galilee, who either lost their jobs without severance pay and other benefits, or who still work in Israeli textile factories below the minimum wage and under substandard working conditions.

According to Sawt el-Amel, "[t]he Women's Platform activists are well aware that knowing and exercising one's rights as a worker does not bring the textile factories back to the Galilee. But it does bring dignity to those who are still working in the factories and self-confidence to start making demands from employers and politicians – and the prospect that one day they will join forces with the workers from the QIZs." When asked why she decided to join Sawt el-Amel, one textile worker replies: "Fear is our [Arab women workers] worst enemy, and only together, we can overcome this enemy. With the Women's Platform, I feel safe."