Message from the Chair of Trustees, Autumn 2007

Aside from the vast settlement blocks which dominate the hilltops, land is taken to build roads to serve the settlements, to create sites for vast formalised check-points and, of course, the separation barrier, security wall, fence – call it what you will –  has taken so much land and often left people cut off from their fields and olive groves. Nowhere is the wall more obvious than in Aida refugee camp near Bethlehem where the wall even dominates the school playground.

Clare Short MP visited the West Bank in late spring and said of what she saw, “I was deeply shocked by the blatant, brutal and systematic annexation of land and deliberate creation of an apartheid system by which Palestinians are enclosed in four bantustans, surrounded by a wall, with massive checkpoints that control all Palestinian movement in and out of the ghettos.”

The people are worn down by the continuous oppression, the endless check-points, the mindless questioning, the constant harassment. Underneath all this is the memory of recent violent events in Gaza which spilled briefly into the West Bank.

Indeed, Unipal trustees wondered if we could sanction a programme at all this summer. The decision had already been taken not to go to the camps in Lebanon following the events of last summer and the on-going fighting in Nahr al-Bared camp near Tripoli. The problems between Hamas and Fatah caused concern for the safety of this year’s West Bank volunteers, but the welcome given to them was as warm and genuine as ever, the help received from all involved was immense and the enthusiasm for the programme was amazing.

It was good to return to the Ramallah camps of Jalazone and al-Amari where successful programmes were held last summer with the enormous help of the director of the children’s centre in Jalazone and the headteacher of the boys’ school in al-Amari. Again this summer, both offered so much help and hospitality and the programmes ran smoothly as a result. We thank both them and their families for their continuing support and friendship.

For the first time in nine years programmes were held in camps near Bethlehem – Aida and Dheisheh – where it was wonderful to find people who remembered Unipal from so many years ago.

The volunteers were quick to recognise the welcome. Paul comments: “Living in Dheisheh has been an experience I will never forget. There is such a vibrancy and human spirit in what should be the most depressing of contexts that I cannot help but feel optimistic in these troubled times. The enormous level of hospitality shown to us left me feeling utterly indebted to the Palestinians, who materially have so little to give.”

The 2007 Summer Programmes

For more information about the 2007 summer programmes, please click on the links below:

• Bethlehem, 2007
• Ramallah, 2007
• Palestinian Teachers in the UK, 2007