Short-term (2 to 4 weeks) "social work" projects in Palestine

Jerusalem, Israel

The Youth Development Department – YDD was founded to work with a development perspective, and to work as a professional and technical umbrella for the youth sector in Jerusalem, with and through the existing youth bodies in Jerusalem, basing its activities locally, regionally and internationally.

Spafford Children Centre is situated on a hilltop in the northeast corner of the Old City of Jerusalem overlooking the Mount of Olives and with a beautiful view of the Al-Aqsa mosque grounds.
Spafford is a community centre serving one of the poorest and most marginalized communities in Jerusalem. The centre provides a variety of services to a wide spectrum of the society, ranging from nursery and a kindergarten for poor children to leisure, cultural, artistic and sports activities for adolescents and adults.
The Centre met this challenge by developing a Psycho-social Special Education and Cultural department to help the children and mothers to cope with the situation. Its programs were gradually expanded and diversified and are still developing and changing to meet new situations as they arise.

Operating through turbulent times in this volatile region, the Spafford Children Centre has always adapted to the changing political situation and to the needs of the local population.
A cultural department has expanded slowly and is fast assuming the characteristics of a community club for children, teenagers and even mothers. It offers different activities, ranging from art with different media, library, folklore dancing, theatre, music, sports and games, and may help the children and the young people to develop talents and skills.
As a proposed workcamp we aim and plan to start a new type of activities which is to spread more feelings toward the old city of Jerusalem by -

- Working on cleaning up the historical walls of Jerusalem. Volunteers will have different voluntary tasks to be done during the 2 weeks workcamp.
- Cleaning the walls of the old city of Jerusalem in different areas, painting and drawing inside the Spafford Centre walls.
- Organizing activities for the students with the local community, organizing sport competitions and activities and designing a challenge track.

The participants will be hosted at the Spafford Children Centre.

The afternoons and evenings are mostly occupied by lectures, parties, documentary films and field visits. Cultural activities will be directed towards learning about the Palestinian history and culture. Besides this, cultural trips will be organized during the workcamp to the different historical and important places inside the Old city of Jerusalem, and other areas in the occupied territories such as Ramallah and Bethlehem. Furthermore, roundtables will be organized by the workcamp organizers and leaders with the local community and the local youth in Jerusalem in order to establish dialogue and to have a better understanding towards the Palestinian daily life and culture.

200 Euros, to be paid upon arrival.

This project seeks to bring young people of various cultures together to build bridges of understanding, reconciliation, and peace. The long-term goal of this project is to prepare youth to make positive contributions to their future and society through the values of understanding, helping, contributing tolerance, and respectful coexistence. These goals are achieved through education, awareness raising, youth empowerment and workcamps.

The work camp will be a challenging two weeks. The participants will have the chance to discuss relevant issues in the world and particularly Palestine. They will visit historically significant sites and refugee camps, and create a positive and real impact in our community through a variety of activities related to Social Youth Development. Living and working together in Nablus, the participants will gain a better understanding of themselves, Palestinian social/political questions, the world around them and the continuing Palestinian struggle for freedom.

International Palestinian Youth League (IPYL) -
IPYL aims to empower Palestinian youth sector through non-formal educational programs, intercultural training, and media literacy workshops and youth leadership activities. Since its inception, IPYL has implemented hundreds of activities, including international voluntary exchanges, cross-cultural study trips, leadership seminars, think tank groups and community meetings. By undertaking these activities, IPYL has developed strong alliances with a wide network of individuals and organisations. IPYL is running this workcamp, for the first time, in partnership with Nablus Association for Social and Community Development "Darna". For more information about IPYL, please visit www.ipyl.org

There are a number of different forms of work that volunteers can participate in, which will be based in one of the refugee camps in the city of Nablus. The work programme has been designed to best suit the needs of the people (mainly children) living in such hard places, as well as to effectively utilise the talents we anticipate volunteers will bring from abroad. The work will be divided into different sessions such as farming, painting, arts, drama and working with the disabled.

At the Askar Refugee Camp.

The afternoons will be used to give volunteers an inter-cultural learning experience, with a focus on showing the international volunteers Palestinian culture within the context of the occupation and hopes for the future. This will involve visits to refugee camps, tours of places of interest, lectures, and most importantly interaction with the local people.
The volunteers will be able to visit the Palestinian villages close to the wall, and they will show their support to the families living in those villages. Volunteers will also be able to visit some centres for women and children and other local NGOs. They will also be able to go for a tour in the villages and visit the amazing gardens and old places that still exist there. They can also do some extra voluntary work such as farming and painting. We will also use the afternoons to show some documentaries about Palestine such as "The Iron Wall", "Occupation 101" and "In the spider web".

200 Euros, to be paid upon arrival.

This project seeks to bring young people of various cultures together to build bridges of understanding, reconciliation, and peace. The long term goal of the project is to prepare youth to make positive contributions to their future and society through the values of understanding, helping, contributing tolerance, and respectful coexistence. These goals are achieved through education, awareness raising, youth empowerment and workcamps.

International Palestinian Youth League (IPYL)-
IPYL aims to empower the Palestinian youth sector through non-formal educational programmes, intercultural training, media literacy workshops and youth leadership activities. Since its inception, IPYL has implemented hundreds of activities, including international voluntary exchanges, cross-cultural study trips, leadership seminars, think tank groups and community meetings. By undertaking these activities, IPYL has developed strong alliances with a wide network of individuals and organisations. IPYL is running this workcamp, for the third time, in partnership with the Alternative Information Center.

Alternative Information Center (AIC) -
The Alternative Information Center (AIC) is an internationally oriented, progressive, joint Palestinian-Israeli activist organisation. It is engaged in dissemination of information, political advocacy, grassroots activism and critical analysis of the Palestinian and Israeli societies as well as the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. The AIC strives to promote full individual and collective social, economic, political and gender equality, freedom and democracy and a rejection of the philosophy (ideology and praxis - weltanschauung) of separation.

The volunteers will work in different villages in the Bethlehem region, such as Eish Al-Ghurab, Dar Salah and Bustan Qaraqa.
Eish Al-Ghurab was an Israeli military base where soldiers were staying. After the Israeli soldiers left the village before a year and a half, the municipality took the place and now it's trying to create amny projects in this place.
The volunteers will help the municipality of Bethlehem in achieving the projects they are working for. They started building a kindergarten, a parking, youth houses, gardens, an hospital and so on. So volunteers will work in this area with the municipality in different task, such as painting, farming, cleaning, etc.

The afternoon will be used to give volunteers an inter-cultural learning experience, with a focus on showing the international volunteers Palestinian culture within the context of the occupation and hopes for the future. This will involve visits to refugee camps in Bethlehem, visiting the associations in the city, tours of places of interest, lectures, and most importantly interaction with the local people. The volunteers will be able to visit the AICafe where they can watch documentary films such as "Twice a week", about the situation in Palestine and the Middle East. They’ll also have the opportunity to speak with the Palestinian politicians and authors who will open the space for them to find the answers for all the questions they want to ask. The volunteers will also have the opportunity to visit other cities in the West Bank, eg. Ramallah, Hebron.

Bethlehem is considered a central hub of Palestinian cultural and tourism industries. The city has significant value for Christians as it is considered the birthplace of Jesus of Nazareth according to the Gospels. Bethlehem is also home to one of the largest Palestinian Christian communities in the Middle East. In addition, Bethlehem has three Palestinian Refugee Camps (Dhisha, Al-Azza and Aaida). The construction of the Israeli apartheid wall has had a severely negative impact on Bethlehem - politically, socially, and economically. The wall runs along the northern side of the town's built-up area, within metres of houses in 'A'ida refugee camp on one side, and Jerusalem on the other.
The work camp will be running in the period of Christmas, where Bethlehem is the best place to celebrate it, so the volunteers will have the opportunity to celebrate Christmas with the Palestinians sharing their celebration and solidarity.

The hosting organisation will rent an apartment for the volunteers where they can stay all together in one place in gender separated rooms. Volunteers will cook their own food, an excellent way of introducing something from your culture. The apartment is located in a village called Beit Sahour "The Shepherds Field".

200 Euros, to be paid upon arrival.