Have you heard of the Hands Up Project (HUP)? It’s a charity that connects young people from Palestine to the world, thus creating amazing learning opportunities, full of fun and creativity. Through linkups, poetry, stories and drama, learners in Palestine improve not only their English, but also their creative thinking and intercultural understanding. Watching their remote theatre performances and listening to HUP storytelling became one of my highlights during the pandemic.

But in October 2023, everything changed. My phone’s notification didn’t lead me to an enjoyable HUP theatre play or story. Instead, I heard founder Nick Bilbrough relating the devastating news of the killing of HUP student Fatema Saidam and her whole family in an Israeli airstrike. He told us about the poetry competition that Fatema had contributed to earlier in 2023, collected in Moon tell me truth. Then he read her beautiful peace poem – written on a crumpled piece of paper by a nine-year-old girl who was deprived of the chance to grow up. Nick also invited us to do the following activity with our own students:

Activity: Moon tell me truth

Level: A1 and up

Time: As long as you want

Aim: Expand creative thinking and intercultural understanding by handwriting and illustrating a poem

Materials: A pen or pencil, coloured pencils and/or crayons, paper and copies of the two paintings by Palestine artists shown below

Prep: Prepare copies of the paintings and of Fatema’s illustrated poem

Procedure:

1. Distribute or display copies of the two paintings by Palestinian artists

2. Ask students singly / in pairs / in groups to write and decorate poems of up to 50 words based on one of the pictures

3. Ask students to present and explain their illustrated poems to the class

4. Distribute copies of Fatema’s illustrated poem and have students discuss its similarities to / differences from those they’ve created.

I followed Nick’s suggestion the next day. My more advanced learners wrote impressive pieces, my beginners felt more comfortable talking about the paintings and some of the poems of the young HUP writers. The wonderful book Moon tell me truth is also available as a download and can thus be projected on a classroom wall.

In the end, most of my learners were deeply touched and at the end of the lesson there was a standing ovation. To be honest, I was a bit anxious whether the lesson would work out, but I

wanted my students to learn about Fatema, her beautiful poem, her creativity and also her death at the of age of nine. Since then, I’ve repeated the task in other courses, and I have almost always some copies of Fatema’s poem with me and distribute them freely.

The activity can be adapted to all levels and ages – school kids reciting the poem with movement, teenagers writing responses or adults doing creative writing or analysis. I invite you to try it out in one of your lessons! You can find the HUP publications as well as videos, photos and further ideas at https://www.handsupproject.org