Introducing the ICS Jerusalem Team June-August 2015

Hello from Jerusalem, Palestine!

My name is Sarah Mahmoud. I am the in-country Team Leader for the Jerusalem ICS team.  Here are most of us. 

I'm the one at the front on the left. 

I want to tell you a little about me, my journey to becoming a ICS TL and most importantly how I’m doing.

I was born and raised in Jerusalem. I live in an area called Ras al-Amoud which is very close to the old city. It is part of Palestinian East Jerusalem.  I studied English Literature and French Language at Bethlehem University.

During my university years I volunteered in many different places like Sharek Youth Forum, Yabous and the African Quarter. After university I worked with Sharek Youth Forum as a project coordinator working first on an UNFPA project in Jerusalem called "Together We Stand", then worked on "Tamayyaz" project for the rest of my time there. Both projects were targeted at young people and “Tamayyaz” was for university students in particular. I was responsible for coordinating their meetings, getting them guest speakers and organizing their events. I worked with two groups, Birzeit University and Alquds University. 

After Sharek I spent some time at home, mostly giving tutoring lessons and some freelance translation. Then I found out about the “In Country Team Leader” position for the Jerusalem team in ICS program. Since I am already familiar with ICS from the time I was in Sharek, I was intrigued to apply.

ICS

I was selected in June as a Team Leader and I have been working with my first group of volunteers for a month now.  What I like most about this position is that it has allowed me to build on my previous volunteering experience by developing my managerial skills.  The main challenge is making sure  the different backgrounds and cultures of our team complement each other rather than cause any problems. The open attitude of all the volunteers really helps.  I like getting to know the volunteers and introduce them to Palestine and its culture. The volunteers, both ICV’s and UKV’s, make the job a lot easier because they're all getting along very well.

The team themselves will explain the work they are doing in future blogs.  I just want to say this is a great programme and I’m taking a huge amount from it.