Fatima Aldajani first learned about The Hands Up Project in 2023 when she came across a Hands up storytelling session shared on social media. Inspired by the work, she immediately reached out to Nick to express her interest in becoming a volunteer. Since then, she has been actively supporting the project in various capacities including linking, archiving materials etc. On April 5, 2025, she organized the first Moon Tell Me Truth exhibition in Toledo, Ohio, showcasing the creative work of students in Palestine and honouring the memory of those who have lost their lives. Looking ahead, Dr. Fatima Aldajani plans to present The Hands Up Project at the 2026 conference in Utah, further highlighting its importance in storytelling and education.

Greece

Efi Tzouri was our first Greek volunteer and has been involved with us for a number of years, currently doing a regular grade 4 curriculum based sessions on Facebook live with Manar in Gaza. She also presented about her inspiring work doing creative writing with young Syrian refugees in Greece.

Japan

Masako Moriwaki first got involved in the Hands Up Project when she was teaching English in Brazil. When she returned to her native Japan she carried on and has arranged some lovely connections between her young learners there and Palestinian and Syrian children. Here’s an example >> YouTube Link

Nepal

A brilliant young storyteller from Nepal called Reevan Kunwor and Shubham Kunwor used to participate in the world storytelling sessions David Heathfield ran at the beginning of the pandemic. But our connection to Nepal goes back further. Nick was very inspired by a session at the IATEFL conference in 2016 by a Nepalese teacher called Gobinda Puri. From Gobinda’s workshop came the idea of encouraging students to create plays about social issues as a language learning activity. This has become a staple of our work.

France

Elise Peizerat in Grenoble was a participant on a storytelling course run by Nick in the UK in 2008 and when the project started she began doing regular storytelling sessions with a group of children at >> Link

Belgium

Aleydis Delforge from Belgium came on a storytelling course run by Nick in the UK in 2010. She became one of our first volunteers when we started the project, doing storytelling with a big group of really enthusiastic girls in Hiyam Arqube's class in Hebron.

Tanzania

Nick met Janet Chapman from the Tanzania Development Trust at an award ceremony in London and we started doing a few online connections with classes in Tanzania through one of our most experienced volunteers, Helen Rountree. However, so far the connection has been so weak that it's been almost impossible to do anything meaningful. >> Link to TDT

South Africa

Olwethu Pissot (Ollie) was our first South African volunteer. She used to do really inspiring sessions with young Syrian refugee kids in Zaatari refugee camp in Jordan and with different teachers all over Palestine. South Africa of course was also home to the great man himself who said this “We know too well that our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of the Palestinians.” >> YouTube Link

Morocco

Mike Bayyouk is a Palestinian Jordanian American who lives in Morocco. So far he's our only Morocco based volunteer, and he does a weekly green screen storytelling session on Facebook live.>> FaceBook Link

Mexico

Nick's done two talks about Hands Up at the BBELT conference in Mexico. As a result of the first one we started getting volunteers in Mexico and the first of these was Sandra Olmedo who used to get up at 5.00 in the morning on a Sunday to tell stories to children in Gaza! The second BBELT talk was in 2020 and in a nice summary of some of the intercultural learning activities we're currently doing >> YouTube Link

Australia

Lauren Edmondson became our first Australian volunteer in 2017 after attending a talk about HUP at a conference in Athens. Since then she's worked regularly with Sahar Siam in Gaza and they still do a weekly Facebook live grade 6 curriculum based session >> FaceBook Link