About Bisan Center

Bisan Center for Research and Development is an active civil society organization, non- governmental and not for profit with democratic and progressive values. Bisan was established in 1989 and registered officially by the Palestinian Ministry of Interior 27/1/2004 under registration number: RA/ 22233/ SS. The organization’s general assembly regularly elects a three years Board of Directors.

In Bisan we continuously seek to enhance Palestinian’s resilience and to contribute in building an effective democratic civil society.

Vision and Mission

Vision: A developed Palestinian society that has a culture promotes freedom, justice, equality and dignity.

Mission: The center aligns itself with the poor and marginalized in their struggles to achieve their socio-economic rights in the context of national and democratic liberation in Palestine. The center supports this struggle through knowledge production and building partnerships with democratic and popular organizations.

Main Objectives:

Developing an effective social movement in which the center is a resource for critical positions and analysis of existing developmental models and practices
Developing knowledge production and community development programs, particularly to work with youth.
Bisan adopts an economic and social rights approach to achieve social justice.
Enhancing human resources specialized in administrative, technical and professional fields, adhering to a financial system that conforms to international accounting standards, and reviewing, modifying and developing monitoring and evaluation systems on an ongoing basis.

Cultural Impact

Bisan is a civil society organization, which believes that the reinforcement and preservation of a Palestinian national identity will inevitably enhance Palestinians’ resilience. Bisan has emerged itself, through its projects and research, into culturally oriented programs aiming to preserve Palestinian identity.

Bisan works with youth organizations, feminist institutions, and CBO’s in marginalized and rural areas from all over Palestine to support their struggle in advancing their socio-economic rights, Bisan has been able to foster cultural initiatives and events that stem from Bisan’s belief in supporting the participation of youth and women.

Target Groups

Bisan works with the following groups as rights holders:

Workers: Bisan invests in efforts to contribute in guaranteeing and fulfilling workers’ socio- economic rights that should be prioritized and promoted.

Poor and marginalized: Palestine is a poor country, mainly as the result of the occupation’s policies and practices. Moreover, the applied neo- liberal policy by PNA led to the impoverishment of people. Getting all the social segments involved in the developmental action will be a major challenge on which Bisan is focusing, to ensure that socio economic rights of the people are protected.

Youth: Bisan works to facilitate protecting and promoting the political, social, and economic rights of Palestinian youth. The focus will be on youth groups and all the youth’s organizations (the structure, the role, the mechanisms of work, related laws,…etc) on the official and community level.

Women: Bisan believes in gender justice, and thus it works in its programs to achieve this goal. Bisan has a gender policy and focuses on promoting women’s rights especially through the coalition for ending violence against women (the coalition for ending violence against women.

Gender Policy

Bisan’s Perception of Gender “Contribute in embodying and practicing social roles by men and women to achieve equality and equal socio- economic rights”. Therefore, Bisan’s gender policy focuses on promoting women’s rights especially through the coalition for ending violence against women.

By affecting the legislations, laws, and bylaws to embody gender concept and through creating joint developmental models for men and women – Build the capacity of women CBOs and the organizations that adopt the principle of joint work between men and women. Besides “Enabling Women Economically and Socially through Cooperatives” funded by UNIFEM.