Emily Bryson did a wonderful workshop at last year’s Hands up Project conference, and in it she demonstrated a language learning activity which involved students drawing around their hands. From there we discovered that there were actually lots of activities involving hands that people knew and these resulted in a benefit book for Hands up, curated by Emily, but with contributions from all over the world, called Hands Up for Peace - Infinite Classroom Activities in your Hands!

Here’s Ashraf demonstrating one of the activities from the book with his ‘Stories Alive’ club in Gaza city.

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Everybody knows about October 7th and its aftermath. Few people know in detail much about the life in Gaza before that. So just in historical and sociological terms the plays are important. But to me plays are more than that – they are living voices. The voices in these plays are brightly alive – under immense pressure grabbing the chance to speak to the world out of the prison, the death cell, of Gaza.

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Not much need for tour guides in the Gaza strip you might say! Israel’s 17 year long blockade has meant that very few people from outside have made it there, and those that have have gone there for work rather than tourism.

But that hasn’t stopped the members of the ‘better together’ drama club in Jabalia, enlisting their imaginations and creating worlds to become tour guides for. This is very rich and enjoyable speaking activity and hats off to Hanaa for managing to do it in such conditions. Check it out in the video below.

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I wrote the British Council Palestine publication - Stories Alive because I wanted to create something that could draw on the motivating and memorable value of stories, whilst at the same time activating areas of grammar and vocabulary from the Palestinian English curriculum.

I wrote the British Council Palestine publication - Stories Alive because I wanted to create something that could draw on the motivating and memorable value of stories, whilst at the same time activating areas of grammar and vocabulary from the Palestinian English curriculum.

I’m proud of the fact that it’s probably been used more than anything else I’ve ever written, and I’m especially proud of the great work that Ashraf is doing with it now by providing a makeshift school for local children in his own home.

Here are just a few of the activities conducted by Ashraf after telling the story of ‘Jackal and crow’ from the Stories Alive materials.

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Can any of us really imagine what it’s like to a child in Gaza right now? To have lived through months of intensive, incessant bombing? To have had close friends and family members killed? To be constantly worried about when you’re next going to be able to eat or drink?

The logical result of this, of course, is that you grow up with deep hatred in your heart and that you want to seek vengeance.

But you could also grow up wanting to make art about your situation. as a step towards healing yourself and your community, and so that others around the world may be moved by your story.

Basim chose the second way. This is his story.

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Has there ever been an exhibition like this?

Children in a besieged enclave write poems inspired by two paintings. They enter them for a competition and the competition poems are made into a book, complete with the two paintings and illustrations by the poets for their poems.

Then the enclave is subject to what the (grown-up) poet Tamim Al-Barghouti describes like this: No city in Palestine has witnessed a massacre of this magnitude, probably, since 1099. He is referring to the capture of Jerusalem by the crusaders, when the streets were ankle-deep in blood.

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Despite the dire conditions in Gaza right now, Hanaa Mansour has managed to set up and run the ‘Better together club’; an English drama club for children which meets every few days in Jabalia refugee camp in the north of Gaza. We’re all immensely proud of this and of you Hanaa! We’ll do everything we caa to support you with this.

It usually takes place every two days. Here are some images and videos of their session today in which the children played the ‘two truths and a lie’ game and created some still images.

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Project based learning, when applied well, can be a great learning tool for both children and adults. It allows for exploration of language, the satisfaction of a completed project, and an opportunity to engage with a topic beyond what might normally be possible. The focus of this blog is to get students to engage with global issues by making a stop motion animation video

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The tragedy currently unfolding in Gaza has myriad consequences, but by far the worst and most long-term are those being heaped upon Gaza’s children. For years UNICEF has warned the world that children bear the brunt of the violence that relentlessly hammers Palestine. This week’s horrors multiply the trauma they already feel to an unimaginable degree.

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