From Totnes to Cairo: A Quaker Meeting of Hope

By Wendy Stayte, Totnes Quakers

As has become a regular delight for a few of us supporters of Hands Up project in Totnes, last Saturday morning we found ourselves again transported into the classrooms of the Hands up Project’s edcuational space in Cairo, now full of refugee children and young people from Gaza.

Sulaiman, the school manager, started this cross-continent exchange by encouraging two shy but plucky and admirably composed young girls to read poems they had recently written, in English, both about fathers left behind in Gaza, remembrances and celebrations of these beloved family members.

Attention turned towards some of the boys and young men in the room, short exchanges in English between us and them, including a game of guessing if statements were true or false!

These provoked a good deal of laughter, and some surprises...like a lad looking small beside his peers informing us he was 1m 90cms and when he stood up he was indeed towering over the others on his long legs!

Another guessing ages game had us astounded by one young man guessing precisely the ages of 2 of us among the Totnes participants, a marvel in any context.

Everyday exchanges, but imbuing me with hope and wonder at the strong undaunted spirit alive in these classrooms despite all the insecurity and terror that these young people have experienced in their lives.

Thanks to Hands Up project for its part in keeping alive in these students and teachers the knowledge that they are not forgotten, their plight is not ignored, by the rest of the world.