Life behind walls

Hi, I’m Amal (far right). 

I was chilling out and chatting with my friend about her life and work, and at that moment she told me about volunteering with ICS in Palestine. I was excited about the idea and asked how I could join this valuable experience. A few months later I decided to apply and be a part of the programme. It was time to give back to my community. What was so appealing to me is the goal of this initiative: it would allow me to be a part of Palestine’s internal development. Focusing on access to education, ICS is able to make a difference in Palestine and I was very proud to be part of this.

I applied and got through the assessment day and was placed in one of the Jerusalem teams. From the middle of June I have been part of a team consisting of Alex, Guy, Muna and me all working towards one goal: helping local communities. We are based in Al-Quds University and IECD in Bethany in East Jerusalem.

Al Quds University

In AQU we work with the Media Department and the Volunteering Department. With the media team we try to help AQU gain recognition through tackling cases and stories of success and innovation. We also try to raise awareness about the University and the difficulties it can face through our page Al-Quds Without Borders (AQWB).  The name was inspired by the wall that isolates Al-Quds campus from its surrounding community. We have documented policies which prevent access to education. The wall violates the rights of students and inhabitants of Abu-Dis: a Palestinian town in the Jerusalem Governorate of the Palestinian National Authority bordering Jerusalem. It is classed as “Area B”.

Al-Quds University has its special tales and stories to be told. In our placement we talked about Abdel Razeq, a student who in total spent 19 years studying due to regular periods where he was denied access to the University. His story of educational struggle was told by him with determination in his eyes. But now Abdel Razeq is a law graduate and researcher at one of the best universities in the West Bank. This only shows us that despite the Occupation, Palestinians are able to thrive and strive as much as possible.  Crossing borders and not giving up, as Abdel Razeq demonstrated, shows the importance of education and his determination to reach his goal. In spite of the challenges and difficulties faced by Palestinians they are still able to succeed and AQWB is a way of them telling their stories.

Working with the media center, we can spread these stories all over the world and show the reality of life as students in AQU.

 

Aizerieh Children’s Centre

Volunteering with IECD gives us the opportunity to teach English conversational classes and teach the kids of Bethany something new which can affect their future positively. We set conversational classes with a lot of activities to engage the students and let them enjoy their time.

At first many students didn’t show much interest in attending the class because of Ramadan fast; but after coming and attending the class they were happy and enthusiastic. Seeing them happy made us thrilled and excited. Most students joined the class and enjoyed their time. We were able to break the ice by getting to know the kids more and teach them some new terms to use.

With the help of our team leaders we were able to reach our goal and make a significant difference. We were able to see the positive in each situation and overcome challenges. We are hoping to add more for each center during our placements.