Bethlehem: Courses to support education of children and families

The first year of the three-year project “Supporting emergency education in the Palestinian Autonomous Territories” has now been completed. The project is financed by the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and is being carried out in collaboration with the AVSI Foundation. The courses supported by ATS pro Terra Sancta and AVSI in this initial year have had a positive impact on all who have been involved: children, families and teachers, as well as the schools participating in the project. The work carried out so far has established the basis for growth of the schools, and for future collaboration among the institutions involved over the coming years of the project.

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Here are the activities supported within the framework of the project: 1. The course Source of health and sickness in families, which was promoted by the Terra Sancta Boys School to help eleven women coming from particularly difficult family situations: problems of domestic violence, abandonment, poverty and inability to raise their children. 2. A summer camp entitled I love you, my sons which welcomed 189 children as well as 36 volunteers. 3. The course Information technology, parents and children: building a dialogue, whose aim was to teach mothers how to use computers and the Internet, thereby allowing them to become more familiar with the world of the Internet and to better understand the way in which this is used by their children. 4. The course Promoting healthy behaviors: the correct posture to be adopted in school, which sought to sensitize students and teachers on the importance of maintaining good posture while seated in school, and to show them how to manage the weight of school bags and make the best use of lighting in the classroom. 5. After-school lessons at the Terra Sancta Girls School to help 42 students in need of extra academic support, involving remedial lessons in mathematics, English and Arabic. 6. The course Strong parents, strong children at the Ecole des Frères in Bethlehem, aimed at improving relations between parents and children. A similar series of courses proposed by ATS pro Terra Sancta to help children and families in Bethlehem during the second year of the project is currently in the design phase.