By Safa, Volunteer Coordinator
In language learning, writing is often viewed as a daunting, even dull, skill. Drawing on my own experience as a teacher from Gaza, I know how little attention it can receive in English classrooms.
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By Haya Oruq
Standing inside El-Jesuit Theater in Cairo as part of the Welcome to Gaza performance was a moment that felt both new and deeply familiar. It was not just another project for me — it was a return to something that has lived inside me for many years.
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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.
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By Dr. Sulaiman
Coordinator of Cairo Space, The Hands Up Project – Egypt
As the Coordinator of Cairo Space for The Hands Up Project in Egypt, I have the privilege of witnessing the impact that dedicated educators and humanitarians can have on our students every day.
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More than twenty years ago, when my kids were still very young, we got a visit from some old friends of mine from Denmark. They brought a memory game with them as a gift for my family. The game was called Hønsefræs (in Danish) and it became one of the most popular games in my family for many years.
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Hello, I'm Doaa, a basic education teacher at Hands Up Project in Cairo. I'll take you with me on a little journey to tell you about the most beautiful times and activities I spend with my wonderful students.
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By Duaa – Art Therapy Teacher , In a world burdened with difficult experiences, inclusion becomes a vital space for growth and recovery. Through our support sessions, we strive to provide a safe environment where every child feels heard, their feelings valued, and that they truly belong.
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Anyone who has been teaching a language for a long time is sure to have lots of staple activities which they keep coming back to because they know that they work. For me one of those activities is the dialogue notebook.
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We’re excited to tell you that we now have a trained music therapist from Gaza, Beker, working with our children in Cairo. This is Beker’s post about his first day at Cairo school.
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For more than 10 years now, The Hands Up Project has been inviting young Palestinians to present themselves through Zoom to other young people around the world, and to our team of volunteers in multiple countries.
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Sahar, who taught English to students at a UNRWA Centre before the outbreak of war teamed up with me and other fabulous TEFL teachers, Vanessa, Sonja, Donal and Liz to facilitate online classes for 13 -16 year old students in Gaza. These sessions started in April 2025 - during the height of the war in Gaza - when many of the students - and Sahar herself were displaced and unable to attend schools.
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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.
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Since the start of the genocidal war in Gaza, my people and I have been living through various forms of suffering, forced to endure and feel it because of the Israeli occupation. Drawing has been my only companion, as it has been since I was a little girl.
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There was once a time when the use of the mother tongue (L1) was generally frowned upon in the teaching and learning of a foreign language. I think that’s no longer the case in many contexts around the world, and, from personal experience as a teacher, and a learner, of languages I’ve always found that activities which compare, contrast and translate between English and other languages can be extremely useful.
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This picture was painted by a 14 year old Gazan school girl, Tala Rasas, from Mamounia UNRWA school in Gaza city. It was given to me by the artist herself, on a visit to Gaza in January 2022. I proudly took it back to Totnes and it’s been on the wall of my flat ever since.
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How did I transform pain into art, and rubble into a message, within the Gaza Strip?
In the heart of a city that has turned grey after two years of genocide, I chose to create color from the rubble—to revive our emotions and our city. I began by launching a series of artistic, theatrical, literary, and other creative activities with our brilliant students as part of the project.
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Escola Padre Reus in Porto Alegre, Brazil is a quite remarkable state school.
Yesterday I was invited there to give a talk to 15 -17 year olds, about the Hands up Project’s work with children in Gaza. They also have the ‘Moon tell me truth’ exhibition set up there in the school corridor for everyone to see.
I don’t think I’ve ever visited a school with such a great atmosphere between teachers and students. All the young people I spoke to were so mature, so aware of the situation in Palestine, and so committed to taking action to support the young people there in whatever way they could.
This morning, one of their teachers, Liliana, pictured in the foreground above, got in touch with me to tell me about about an activity she did today with the poems from ‘Moon tell me truth’. She encouraged her students to find one of the poems that they found particularly inspirational and then write a short text in English as a response. Below you’ll find four examples of these texts with the poems that inspired them.
What a beautifully simple idea this is. If you’re an English teacher somewhere in the world and you’d like to find ways to share the creative work of Palestinian children in engaging ways, perhaps it could work in your context?
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Nearly all the poems in ‘Moon tell me truth’ were written by children in Gaza in the Spring of 2023. Now children around the world are being inspired by these poems; inspired by the beauty of expression by children living in unimaginable conditions and inspired to create their own poetry as a result of reading them. In this blog post I’d like to share how this has happened at one of my local primary schools in Devon - Dartington Primary. It all started when the school asked me whether they could have the exhibition as a permanent feature and have myself and Peter Oswald to come to the school and do a workshop with the kids there.
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Isora Enriquez OFrarrill (left) is the Hands up Project’s voluntary coordinator in Havana, Cuba. She’s worked tirelessly to build connections between children and teachers in Cuba with their brothers and sisters in Palestine.
I actually went to Cuba to have a much needed break from it all. And I did do that in this fascinating, beautiful country. But I’m also grateful to Isora for drawing me in to strengthening our connections with schools there.
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Every Friday, educators from Gaza to Oxford, Cairo to California, gather around a virtual campfire. No agendas, no pressure—just a shared mission to uplift students through English education. This is the heartbeat of our weekly drop-in sessions.
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