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Programs and Events 2008

Poster with camp title made by one of the children
Poster with camp title made by one of the children

Consulate Jerusalem Helps Refugee Children “Discover” their potential with Summer Camps

 

For the second year in a row, Consulate Jerusalem engaged and challenged socioeconomically disadvantaged children throughout the West Bank with a Consulate -sponsored, Amideast-implemented YEP program, “Camp Discovery.”  This year, this 3-week summer camp was offered in four locations in the West Bank—Ramallah, Nablus, Jenin, and Hebron—as well as in Gaza.   Each camp, which targeted kids from 8 to 14 years old, mostly from refugee camps, was designed around the theme of “discovery”—of English, scientific research, artistic expression, and “leadership, teamwork and community service.” 

 

The camps, which provided a fun, peaceful environment for children who live in often very violent surroundings, aimed to promote a love of learning in the children and exposed them to American culture and values, with the added benefit of priming them for participation in other USG-sponsored programs, such as ACCESS (English language study) and YES (high school exchange). 

 

 

ACCESS program alumni also enthusiastically participated as volunteer camp counselors at each site, providing the young campers with strong local role models.    Consulate staff participated actively in the closing exhibits of the Ramallah, Nablus, and Hebron camps and were thrilled by the skits, dances, songs, poetry readings—all in English—that the children performed for an audience of their peers, teachers, families, communities, local government officials, and the press. 

 

 

Camp Discovery participants from the New Askar refugee camp in Nablus, who had learned about Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. during camp, sang all 4 verses of “We Shall Overcome” and played an “English only!” game of charades with the audience of almost 200 members of the local community.  A group of students at the Qalandia refugee camp in Ramallah performed a skit in English about the need to protect trees, while campers in Hebron acted out a dream sequence in which a young Palestinian girl meets great Americans from history, including Martin Luther King, the Wright Brothers, and Thomas Edison.     Each camp also presented a display room of the students’ art and science projects, such as homemade electrical machines, planetary models, dissected rats, and colorful paintings.  Representatives from the Consulate chatted with the children and their families and teachers after each ceremony, and everyone – including Representatives from UNRWA, the Palestinian Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Youth and Sport, and the National Committee for Summer Camps – warmly and publicly thanked the Consulate General for making Camp Discovery happen and begged for more sites, more students and a longer program next year.  

 

Al Ajyal radio, ranked number one by West Bank youth in a recent opinion poll, broadcast a one-minute 42-second exclusive report on the closing ceremony festivities at Camp Discovery’s Ramallah site, located in the Qalandia refugee camp.  The report featured enthusiastic students praising the camp for all its science, art, and English language activities, as well as comments by the camp director thanking the U.S. government for its sponsorship.