Highlights of the Week

As an intern at Tomorrow’s Youth Organization, I have the wonderful opportunity to directly experience TYO’s multi-generational approach to community-building by leading an aerobics class for women of various ages and a dance class for pre-adolescent girls.  While working to help the women in my aerobics class improve their level of physical fitness and knowledge of wellness issues, I have discovered that several of the workouts popular in the United States are also enthusiastically received by Palestinian women, including Tae Bo and yoga.  As for my dance class, I focus the first half of each lesson on ballet.  In just six class sessions, the girls have learned first through fifth position, port de bras, plié, relevé, tendu, and rond de jambe. I spend the second half of class teaching hip hop, in which several of my students have demonstrated a real talent.  So far, the girls have learned how to chain together nearly 15 steps to create a hip hop dance routine.

Outside of class, I seized several opportunities to become better acquainted with my translators and volunteers this weekend.  My aerobics class translator, Hanin, had previously extended an invitation to me to visit her home, and I gladly accepted her kind offer on Thursday evening, when I joined her family for dinner.  She and her husband picked me up from TYO and drove me to their house, where I met her children and a few relatives.  Hanin had prepared a delicious dinner of foul, pita bread, kibbeh, fried tomatoes, a tahini-based dish, eggplant, and fettoosh, which we topped off with home-made ice cream cake.  Hanin and I then moved out to the balcony to chat over coffee and fresh fruit.  We sat in the stillness of the evening, breathing in the chilliness of the night air and enjoying each other’s company.  Hanin’s daughter Nana and son Munir, both of whom are close to me in age, soon joined us, and we gradually began to open up to each other.  Perhaps inspired by my revelation that it was the first time I had tasted fresh guava, and despite my protest since she had already lavished enough generosity upon me, Hanin stuffed an ice-cream container full of fresh fruit for me to take home.  Finally, her family and I packed into their car for a driving tour of Rafidia, a fun going-out district full of boutiques, restaurants, and ice cream shops where many of Nablus’s Christian residents live.

I found myself coming back to Rafidia the next evening with Adrienne, Ashwini, and Samee to meet our Kalimatna Initiative partners Hasan and Haya, accompanied by her sister Hala, for “fruit cocktails” (milkshakes made with fruit juice, ice cream, and nuts and topped mixed fruits on top) at Fekhfekhina, a fruit juice and ice cream shop.  I ran into our third Kalimatna Initiative partner, Khamis, on Saturday in the municipal park outside the Suwarna Exhibition featuring photographs taken by Nabulsi children participating in TYO’s Triple Exposure program.  There were also several other TYO volunteers helping out at the exhibit, including my dance class volunteers Ruba and Jumana.

After seeing the Suwarna exhibit, I walked with Ruba and Jumana to Rafidia to meet with more of our class volunteers—Somoud, Iman, and my translator, Farah—for snacks at a restaurant with a great view overlooking the mountains and hills of the city.  I was glad to have the chance to spend an afternoon with my volunteers outside of the classroom to learn about what subjects they were studying at the university, how many brothers and sisters they had, and their past volunteer experiences at TYO.  In turn, they took the opportunity to learn about my interest in Arab and Palestinian culture, my passion for working with children and youth, my impressions of Nablus, and a bit about my life in the United States.

- Julie

Julie is an intern at TYO and a participant in the Kalimatna Initiative.

Halloween in Nablus!

Halloween is my absolute favorite holiday of the entire year! So this year, knowing that I would miss the festivities in the States, I knew that I had to incorporate it into my class.  In my class Art and Empowerment, participants learn about and do various art projects tailored to promote self-esteem, identity construction and connections with the community.  Last week, I created a Halloween art lesson plan that was equal parts scary and sweet.

When I asked the girls in the class if they had heard of Halloween, one said, “Yes, it’s where you get a tree and put presents under it!”  (A Halloween/Christmas hybrid does sound intriguing—maybe next year.)  Using paper plates, cereal boxes, paint, feathers and glitter the girls made masks—some scary, some crazy, some striking.  We had several abstract feather people, a Frankenstein, and quite a few flesh-eating monsters.  After finishing the masks, volunteers from the local university led the girls around the TYO center for trick or treating.  Staff members asked the trick or treaters to do tricks—sing happy birthday, spin around in a circle, hop on one foot–and then rewarded them with plenty of candy.

Through this project, I was able to get my Halloween fix, introduce my students to a fun American tradition, and get TYO staff involved with my class.  It was a great way to bring Halloween to Palestine.  And of course, here are the magnificent masks!

Ashwini is an intern at TYO Nablus and a participant in the Kalimatna Initiative.

TYO Gala: President Clinton praises TYO as a promising solution

Last week, Tomorrow’s Youth Organization came out in Washington, DC with a series of events including our first ever Gala on October 21, 2010. We celebrated our successes from the last three years in Nablus and announced exciting expansion plans as we honored our valued supporters including President Bill Clinton, former UK First Lady Cherie Blair and music legend Quincy Jones. We are grateful that event co-chairs, Ambassador Yousef al Otaiba, Samia Farouki and Terry McAuliffe also played a huge role in the week’s proceedings.

The TYO Gala reflected our distinctive mix of engagement, passion, innovation and high-quality including a performance by the Dupont Park Children’s Choir of Washington, DC who sang the song that Quincy Jones has donated to TYO, Tomorrow, after a moving introduction from Mr. Jones himself. The event highlighted the urgent need for innovative programming for children and women in the West Bank and the broader Middle East. Another inspiring theme of the week and the Gala presentation was the extraordinary potential of Middle Eastern women as a lever for social change.

The success of our Gala was due in part to the presence of our distinguished honorees: President Bill Clinton, Cherie Blair and Quincy Jones. Their remarks stirred the 400+ guests, who were also inspired by the promise they saw in our participants through stunning large-scale audiovisual presentations throughout the evening (like this short video), as well as past and present TYO team members in attendance at the Gala.

Former President Clinton praised TYO’s work as a promising solution for the formidable challenges we face in the Middle East. He said that TYO “empower[s] women… increases[s] educational opportunities and frankly involve[s] more social empowerment without which you can’t have a balanced society.”

TYO was also thrilled to honor Cherie Blair, founder of TYO ally Cherie Blair Foundation for Women (CBFW) with whom we have enjoyed enormous success through our collaboration Fostering Women Entrepreneurs in Nablus. Mrs. Blair acknowledged the power of our cooperation: “Together we’re enabling women to develop and build on their business talents, and thus, to help themselves, their families, and wider society…” And, she urged the audience to support our efforts, “every dollar you spend on [our work] is returned a thousand fold…Come to the Middle East and see the potential is there.”

Gala emcee and co-chair, Terry McAuliffe, echoed President Clinton and Mrs. Blair’s remarks: “If we truly want peace in the Middle East, it is about helping people have a better future. We have got to give these children an education. We have got to help women better themselves.”

We shared, we listened, we celebrated; but most of all, we raised awareness about the open hearts and tremendous possibility of children and women in the Middle East. It was incredible! A huge thanks to those of you who attended, had some role in the Gala, or are part of the TYO community in another way. And ahlan wa sahlan – come get involved – to those of you who aren’t yet.

TYO humbly thanks its generous sponsors that supported this event, including the PalTel Group Foundation, Mohamed S. Farsi Foundation, Abercrombie & Kent, FedEx, Dewey and LeBoeuf, William Haughey, Raj Fernando, Christophe Jungels-Winkler, A. Huda and Samia Farouki, Terry and Dorothy McAuliffe and Capital Corporation.

Intern Journal: Things that Grow

In the last class before a week-long break my students set up beans for sprouting. All it takes is a wet cotton ball, some beans, and a small dish or Dixie cup. We set them near a window, and I added a little water throughout the break. By the time the kids returned, all of their beans had roots and a few green leaves were even poking through. So we transferred the sprouts from the small cups to larger plastic containers, which they decorated with crayons and constructed paper and filled with soil.

When I checked on the sprouts I was delighted to see that one of the plants growing the fastest belongs to Mohammed, an 8-year-old whose motor skills and conceptual skills have been visibly “behind” the others in most of our activities. By speaking with Suhad, our psychosocial specialist, I had learned that Mohammed is the middle child between two brothers. In most Palestinian families, the oldest boy has a close relationship with the father. Additionally, in Mohammed’s family, the youngest boy has a heart problem, causing his mother to be away at a hospital in Jerusalem for long periods of time. Mohammed has been left to try to comprehend the world on his own since the age of three. Combined with the raids and violence that all of my students have seen, it’s no wonder Mohammed’s development has been stunted.

But it isn’t just Mohammed’s plant that is growing. In many classes I find him looking to the paper of the person next to him to copy their drawing. Sometimes his older brother, Sa’ed, simply does the work for him, particularly when it involves using scissors. On Thursday Mohammed came to class without Sa’ed, who was on an excursion with their father. When we began our creating flowers from recycled plastic bags, Mohammed sat focused on the materials in front of him. I held the rolled-up plastic bag while he wrapped a rubber band around it and then slowly crossed it to wrap it around again. “Yes, Mohammed, mumtaz!” I cried when he completed the task perfectly. I offered him the lone pair of large scissors we had and again held the plastic while he cut. Then he fluffed out the plastic to form the petals. He looked up at me expectantly, displaying his creation. “Helwa kiteer!” I exclaimed, meaning extremely beautiful, and referring to both the flower and the child. I could have done a dance to those words.

-Kara

Kara is an intern at TYO Nablus and a participant in the Kalimatna Initiative.

TYO is participating in GlobalGiving’s Global Open, can you help us win up to $6,000 in prize money?!

From March 25 – April 26, 2010, TYO is competing to earn a spot on the GlobalGiving website, and earn up to US $6,000 from Global Giving by being one of the top fundraisers in the ‘Global Open’ Challenge. The organization with the greatest number of individual donations will win $3,000, and a separate $3,000 prize will go to the project, which raises the most money. The second and third place runners up for both achievements will get $2,000 and $1,000 respectively. In order to keep our project on GlobalGiving longer term, and use their website for ongoing fundraising, we need to raise a minimum of US $4,000 from at least 50 unique donors during the Challenge.

Please visit our project page and keep an eye on the leaderboard to see how we are stacking up!

This spring our GlobalGiving project supports our International Internship Program! International Community Development Interns lead enriching programs for children, youth and adults from refugee camps and other marginalized areas of Nablus. Each intern develops and implement their own creative, 3-month program, acts as important role model for over 1,000 community members, documents participants’ learning and development, and takes part in valuable intercultural cooperation. In October 2009, after two successful summer internship programs, TYO added fall and spring internship opportunities to its program. The International Internship Program is an essential part of TYO’s work. International interns make it possible for us to double the amount of classes we can offer the community of Nablus. Additionally, interns gain powerful and invaluable insights into the worlds of teaching, education and Nablus. We help us to continue this important program by supporting our project on Global Giving now.

You can help us raise money, earn a spot for our projects on GlobalGiving longer term and earn GlobalGiving prize money by spreading the word!

1) Pass along this blog post to your friends and families and ask them to tell others.

2) If you are planning to make a donation this year to TYO please do so by going to our project on GlobalGiving.

Again our sincere thanks for your support and commitment to TYO and our work!

Thanks!

The TYO Team

Introductions: New Interns!

Spring 2010 Interns Kara (left) and Mary (right)

TYO is pleased to introduce the latest members of its Nablus team. Welcome, Kara and Mary! They will be interning with TYO for the Spring 2010 Session along with Bieta, who has been with us since October 2009. In addition to teaching classes for women and youth, Kara, Mary and Bieta will take part in the Kalimatna Initiative this spring. Please check this blog frequently for their updates on their progress and reflections on their experiences in Nablus. For now, here is a bit about Mary and Kara straight from the source!

I have two life goals: to publish my own children’s books and to be multilingual. I am excited for the ways that working at TYO will contribute to those goals and other positive work I do in the future! As for the basics, I grew up in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, but I’m not Amish. I graduated from American University in D.C. in May, and since then I’ve been a wandering/wondering anthropologist. Most recently I spent ten days with some of the world’s most interesting journalists at a media training in Yucatan, Mexico. I also spent time last fall leading youth art workshops in Guatemala. I look forward to developing my skills at promoting critical thinking through art with my class at TYO! I like yoga and bicycling. I also enjoy cooking and share meals with friends. And finally, I love to learn what I have in common with new people from different places.

-Kara

Originally from New York City, I became interested in Arabic, the Middle East, and Palestine during my freshman year at Brown University.  After my first Arabic class sophomore year, I took a year off from college to study the language intensively in Morocco and Egypt.  The summer of that year, I volunteered as an English teacher in Nahr al Bared refugee camp in northern Lebanon.  At Brown, I majored in Middle East Studies and Development Studies.  In 2007, I spent a year interning at Human Rights Watch and Human Rights First before heading to Jordan for the next fifteen months on a Fulbright grant. I would like to continue researching the Middle East as an anthropology graduate student, so I’ve applied to PhD programs for Fall 2010.  I love studying Arabic, cooking, exercising, gardening, and dance parties.  Kunafa is just about my favorite thing, so I look forward to eating a lot of it in Nablus.

-Mary

Thanks for joining our team in Nablus!

TYO recently extended its International Internship into a yearlong program with fall, spring, and summer options. If you are interested in interning with us in Nablus, please sign up here for updates and new applications as they become available. Thanks!