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News Archive
Saturday 3rd June
We visit the other main camp in Beirut in the morning. The conditions there are truly shocking. Then we return to our schools in Shalita, and have an evaluation meeting with our partner teachers to discuss the week. I wear my Brazilain t-shirt, and this goes down very well, especially with the children in the camp!
We are flying home at 2am tonight.
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Friday 2nd June
Today is our day off. We visit the beautiful Jeita caves to the north of Beirut. They are vast, breathtaking and full of stalectites and stalecmites, with a green lake hundreds of metres below. Soli the trip organiser and Ron the photographer spend the day in Shatila, and hear some heart-breaking stories. They meet people who haven't seen their family since they had to leave Palestine nearly 60 years ago, and who have no hope of seeing them now.
In the evening we go out dancing to traditional arabic music, and learn some Palestinian dances. I'm going to teach you them when I get back!
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Thursday 1st June
Shatila
Today is the essence of our visit. We spend the morning teaching at UNRWA school and the Najdeh Kindergarten.
Later we visit PARD, a forward thinking educational service provider co-run by Ahmed Halimeh, and NAVTSS, a successful vocational training course provider. Ahmed tells us: "Palestinians live in a dark tunnel: They don't know their future." This view is echoed by a teacher at UNRWA: "Life is insecure, especially if you have aspirations."
Despite this, it is impossible not to be inspired by the exuberance, eagerness to learn and warmth of our students, the professionalism of our partner teachers, and the creativity and persistence of the NGOs supporting them.
A lasting memory for me will be walking through Shatila, and being greeted by name at every turn by children from the schools. It will be very difficult to leave.
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Wednesday 31st May
Shatila Camp
Today has been an incredible day, and this morning seems at least three days ago.
We spend all day in the Kindergarten, Najdeh Centre and Junior school in the camp. The electricity keeps flickering on and off, but everyone carries on with their studies and discussions regardless.
I film boys and girls from Years 3, 4 and 8 talking about their hopes and dreams, and play football in the street with some little boys, one of whom has a great scar on his leg from an explosion.
Our minibus driver tells us that he was in Shatila camp during the massacre and only escaped by hiding under his bed. When he came out the camp was deserted. Luckily his family was able to flee in time. Other people we have spoken to have not been so lucky.
We spend very lively playtimes with the little girls, who sing and dance with us, and take part in a fascinating exchange with some young teenage girls, talking wisely about the differences between what they know their rights to be, and what the real situation is for them. It is so inspiring to see the confidence that participating in their group at the Najdeh centre is giving them. Tomorrow we will be back in the Shatila schools again. ************************************************* Tuesday 30th May Tyre
Drive 1.5 hours down the coast to visit the ancient city of Tyre, established 5,000 years ago. We stop off in Sidon to have our passports and papers authorised by the military, and pass two refugee camps, surrounded by high walls topped with barbed wire, with armed military checkpoints at their only entrances. We pass through a similar checkpoint on arrival at the El-Buss camp in Tyre (home to more than 10,000 registered refugees), and are welcomed at the Tyre Najdeh centre. A beautician's course for young women from the camp is taking place and we get eye-brows and nostril hairs threaded! (Plucked with cotton thread) Ow!
We visit two dynamic kindergartens (ages 3-6) funded by Education Action International and sing songs in Arabic and English with the children. We also visit Burj El-Shemali camp (home to nearly 19,000). Everyone is checked on the way in and out of the camps, and the Palestinian residents are not allowed to bring any building materials in to improve their homes, or build more rooms. Additionally, they are banned by law from owning any property outside of the camps.
We visit the camp's junior school and take part in English, Maths and Arabic classes. Again, the children are very friendly and excited to meet us. They remember me because my name is (almost) the name of a soft drink ? Mirinda.
I have started filming, but am not allowed to take any footage of the military posts. Tomorrow, we will meet our partner teachers. Hope that half-term is going well for you all.
********************************************** Monday 29th May Ahlan! ("Welcome", and the warm manner in which every Lebanese and Palestinian person greets us.) Visit to Shatila, a refugee camp on the edge of Beirut. There is no fence around the camp, or guards, as I had been expecting, but it is strikingly different from the main areas of the city. The widest street is only 3 or 4 metres across, and the greenery that dominates the rest of Beirut is completely lacking. Instead, bunched up electricity cables and water pipes bridge the narrow gap from one side of an alley to the other. The whole camp is only 100 metres by 100 metres, so people have had to build upwards. The camp is like a cube, with narrow concrete steps leading up to tiny rooms 6, 7 or 8 floors above. At least 12,000 people live here. That number is just those who are registered, but the actual figure may be much higher. We visit Najdeh's base and meet some young women having an English class. These are children aged 8-12, and include non-ID children who can't go to school anywhere else. There is also a computer class for adults. The electricity keeps flickering on and off. They rely on generators as the government does not supply the camps with power. Next we visit the only school for children in years 3-6. Because there is not enough room for all the children at once, the school operates a double-shift system. The girls go to the school in the afternoon and the boys in the morning. We meet Years 5 and 6 coming down for break, in their blue school overalls. All are very friendly and eager to meet us and to practise their English (their first language is Arabic). They have no outside space or grass to play on, but do have a light and airy concrete space on the ground floor. We also spend some time in Year 3 and 4 classes (English and Geography). All the children are very well behaved and calm! We then visit a kindergarten run by Najdeh (ages 3-6). This is down a 1 metre-wide alley, and again has no outside space. However, the children are all learning happily, taking it in turns to write in English and Arabic on the blackboard. On the way to the kindergarten we pass a building that is a tomb and monument to 700 of the victims of the 1982 massacre in Shatila. We then visit the Head Quarters of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency and meet the woman who manages the schools in Lebanon for Palestinian refugees. She tells us that her dream is to create some green spaces for the children to play on, and to decrease the double-shift system. This would allow children to take part in activities like sport and music in the afternoon. Finally after lunch - delicious Lebanese fast-food (falafel and lamb kebabs, a very healthy version of McDonalds) - we visit ARC. This is an organisation which creates teaching resources. Their big focus is children's rights, and they help set up programmes where children learn to teach each other. Tomorrow we are going to visit another camp in the South. P.S: Brazilian flags are everywhere, so it's clear who people want to win the World Cup! ************************************************ Sunday 28th May
Marhaba! (Hi)
All signs are in Arabic and French, so we are lucky that our tour organiser is a Palestinian man (who now lives in London) who can translate everything for us, and also has a large amount of knowledge about the region and its history.
We learnt that there are many Palestinians who are not registered, and do not have IDs, because they have had to leave the places they were living before (including Palestine and Egypt). These people can't get any access to eductation even in the camps. I hope to learn more about how they can be helped tomorrow, when we visit Shatila (one of the camps) and also meet with two other organisations who help the refugees.
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