In October 2016, Elaine Daly was awarded honorary citizenship of the city of Bethlehem and presented with a "Bethlehem Passport". The passport is issued by the Open Bethlehem Campaign in partnership with the Governate of Bethlehem. It does not grant actual citizenship - but is rather a symbolic gesture to mark Elaine's efforts to support the people of Bethlehem. The message inside the passport reads: 'the bearer of this passport is held to be a citizen of Bethlehem, to have contributed to the survival of this city, and to have stood by the ideasls that continue to make Bethlehem an inspiration to the world". 500 such passports have been issued to date and Elaine is the only Irish citizen who has received one! Fellow recipients include Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Pope Benedict XVI and former US president Jimmy Carter.
For the past 10 years Elaine has organised information trips to the West Bank in a personal, non-profit making capacity. She has brought 16 different groups to the West Bank and approximately 400 people have travelled with her to the region, contributing somewhere in the region of €500,000 to the local economy. While in the West Bank, people meet with a wide range of individuals, groups, organisations and NGOs from both Palestine and Israel and listen to what they've got to say. The trips have proved to be a great way of raising awareness of the situation in Palestine.
The visits are a great opportunity to highlight the plight of the Palestinian people and the illegal occupation of Palestine and is a timely reminder of this as we enter the Christmas season.
