Bethlehem Development Foundation holds a Christmas lunch at the Convention Palace

On Sat­ur­day, 22nd of Jan­u­ary, 2022, the Chair­man of the Board of Trustees, Mr. Samer Saeed Khoury, invit­ed the Beth­le­hem Devel­op­ment Foun­da­tion (BDF) patrons, trustees, direc­tors, stake­hold­ers and part­ners to a lun­cheon at the Con­ven­tion Palace in Beth­le­hem, Palestine.

In his wel­com­ing speech, Mr. Khoury opened with impor­tance of this meet­ing, which is the first to be held after the out­break of the pan­dem­ic. He stressed the need to coop­er­ate at all lev­els in order to con­tribute towards the accel­er­at­ed regen­er­a­tion of the tourism sec­tor in Bethlehem.

Mr. Khoury high­light­ed the con­tin­ued com­mit­ment of the BDF and Con­sol­i­dat­ed Con­trac­tors Com­pa­ny (CCC) in invest­ing and pro­mot­ing the devel­op­ment of the Beth­le­hem Gov­er­norate and in part­ner­ship with civ­il soci­ety insti­tu­tions, as well as, the pub­lic and pri­vate sec­tors. Mr. Khoury dis­cussed the need to focus on projects that will pro­vide young men and women with the skills need­ed to enter the mar­ket­place and the impor­tance of invest­ing in address­ing youth unemployment.

Dr. Khouloud Daibes, Man­ag­ing Director/CEO, pre­sent­ed BDF’s cur­rent projects, guid­ed by a clear and com­pelling pro­jec­tion of what the foun­da­tion plans to achieve on the short-term, as well as a long-term sus­tain­able vision to revi­tal­ize the Gov­er­norate.  Dr. Daibes high­light­ed the role of BDF as a devel­op­ment leader and a trans­for­ma­tion­al change agent in devel­op­ing the vison and in coop­er­a­tion with all part­ners. BDF is keen on con­tribut­ing towards a green­er and more sus­tain­able Beth­le­hem Gov­er­norate, specif­i­cal­ly around pop­u­lar tourism sites. Ongo­ing projects include pro­mot­ing street light­ing efforts with solar ener­gy and the revi­tal­iza­tion of pub­lic spaces and pedes­tri­an side­walks and street fur­ni­ture through incor­po­rat­ing green efforts sus­tain­able solutions.

Amongst the guests who attend­ed were the Foun­da­tions’ patrons, his beat­i­tude Patri­arch Theophi­los III, HE Bish­op Munib Younan, H.E Min­is­ter of AL Wakf Hatem Bakri, rep­re­sen­ta­tives of local church­es, the Gov­er­nor, May­ors of Beth­le­hem, Beit Jala, Beit Sahour, Doha, Alkhad­er and sev­er­al esteemed com­mu­ni­ty leaders.

The meet­ing includ­ed a speech by Engi­neer George Bas­sous, the Gen­er­al Man­ag­er of the Con­ven­tion Palace. At the end of the gath­er­ing Mr. Samer Khoury on behalf of the trustees and direc­tors hon­ored Mr. Mazen Karam in appre­ci­a­tion for his ded­i­ca­tion as the for­mer CEO of BDF.