Portugal
We have two volunteers based in Portugal, Richard and Charles. Together they do a very innovative weekly Facebook live session called 'Chants of a Lifetime' The question is who's in charge? >> FaceBook Link
Read MoreNew Zealand
This is the home of our brilliant designer Mark Fenton. As well as designing this website, two of our books of plays, with Eva and any promotional material we might need, Mark has volunteered doing conversation sessions with young adult Syrians in Azraq refugee camp in Jordan, and with young adults in Gaza - no mean feat when you consider that New Zealand can be as much as 11 hours later than Palestine and Jordan! Ten minutes into the launch of 'Popcorn' you can hear Mark and Eva talking about they designed the book. >> FaceBook Link
Read MoreJordan
We started doing sessions in Azraq and Zaatari refugee camp right at the very beginning of the project with our partners there, Relief international. Here's one of the earliest sessions we did >> YouTube.
Nick visited both camps in 2017 and was thrilled to finally meet face to face some of the students who he'd been working with. >> YouTube
Read MoreIndonesia
Eva, who designed our first book 'Toothbrush' is from here and she's helped us to arrange lots of connections with students in Indonesia. See for example this intercultural 'show and tell' session. >> FaceBook Link
She was also present at our first conference and recorded this video of the closing performance of 'Inner Thoughts' >> FaceBook Link
Read MoreEcuador
Elizabeth Urquizo, a teacher of English in Quito, was inspired by an online talk which Nick did for Cambridge University Press about the Hands Up Project.>> YouTube
As a result of Elizabeth promoting our work we've had lots of students (and even whole families) participating in our online intercultural courses and events.
Read MoreEgypt
Nick presented about HUP to an audience of over 2000 Egyptian teachers of English at the Nile TESOL conference in Cairo in January 2019. As a result of this lots of copies of 'Toothbrush' were bought in Egypt. Ayat Tawel, a teacher trainer based there, attended our first HUP conference at Westminster University in London. After interviewing the winners of the competition, she wrote this blog post about what it meant to the five girls from Khan Younis, Gaza. >> Read Blog
Read MoreArgentina
Emma Gowing, at IH Buenos Aires, was our first volunteer based in Argentina. Susan Hilyard, a specialist in educational drama who is also based in Argentina, is kind enough to offer scholarships on her online drama for TEFL courses for HUP involved teachers of English based in Palestine. Because of these initial connections we've now have a brilliant remote theatre specialist in Argentina, Maria Teresa Continanza, we've had lots of Argentinian students participating in our online intercultural communication skills course and we've done a few 'Intercultural Show and Tell' sessions between young people in Gaza and Argentina. >> Facebook Link
Read MoreVenezuela
Our one volunteer from Venezuela, Mari has been a very active member of our community. She researched the Hands up Project for her Masters at Warwick University, and is currently researching it further for her PhD. Here's a talk she gave about HUP at the IATEFL conference in Liverpool in 2019. Watch Here. Because of Mari's connections we've also tend to have lots of students from Venezuela participating in our online intercultural communication skills courses. Read Here
Read MoreTurkey
We have several volunteers based here. In April 2019 Nick presented about remote theatre at a big conference for language teachers in Gazientep and the talk culminated in the first ever remote performance from Gaza of "We will wait until they open the gate", greeted to a standing ovation from the audience. Watch the recording here Youtube. Turkish news channel 'A news' have also done several reports about our work. Here's the first one>> aNews YouTube
Read MoreRussia
Alex Guzik in Krasnador is our longest standing volunteer. She started doing online storytelling sessions with Sahar Salha's students in Beith Hanoun, Gaza in 2016 and they're still working together today! (doing team taught curriculum-based sessions on Facebook) Here's a blog post about one of their first sessions >> Read here
Read MoreRomania
One of our trustees, Andy lives here and International House Bucharest are the coordinators of our EU Funded Remote theatre project. There've been lot of link ups between Hanaa Mansour's students in Beit Hanoun, Gaza and this school and a huge highlight was the lockdown performance of 'Live your life' which, as well as from Gaza and Romania, also included students from Argentina and Spain. Watch it here >> YouTube
Read MorePakistan
Back in 2017 a Pakistani teacher, Madeeha Manzur started doing online 'show and tell' between her students in Rawalpindi and Iman Odeh's students in Qalquiliya, Palestine. This went on to become a staple of our work. You can read about how it first started in Madeeha's blog post here.>> Read here
Read MoreFinland
A teacher of English in Finland, Tuija Palmunen got in touch with us because she wanted her students to connect to children in Gaza. The result was the first international performance of the remote play, Lemon and Mint with children acting together in both places. Watch it here >> YouTube
Read MoreCroatia
In Autumn 2018 Nick ended his talk about drama and language learning at IH Split with a remote performance of 'Live your life' direct from Beit Hanoun, Gaza. Afterwards each of the five actors had a chance to talk about what it meant to them to create and perform this play. The audience of teachers from the Balkans were deeply moved and the director of the school decided to apply for an EU grant with us to launch our remote theatre project. Watch the recording of the girls talking about the play here >>. Youtube
Read MoreBrazil
In summer 2017 Nick was sponsored by Cambridge University Press to present at conferences all over Brazil. Of course he couldn't help mentioning our work! The result is that we now have lots of volunteers who are based here. One teacher Masako Moriwaki had the inspired idea to incorporate HUP into her project based English classes in Sao Paolo. You can read all about it here >> With Love From Brazil
Read MoreBosnia
Nick visited several schools in Bosnia in Autumn 2019 and arranged some link ups with young people in Gaza. He also donated a copy of "Toothbrush and other plays' to the War Childhood museum in Sarajevo. Going forward the young people of Gaza will have their own dedicated section of the museum and artefacts are currently being collected in Gaza to add to the exhibition. >> visit War Child.org
Read MorePalestine
Here's where it all began - with a weekly link between students at Tamer Institute for Community Education in Gaza and Nick in his kitchen in Totnes, Devon. Here's a recording of one of the first sessions we did.>> YouTube.
Now we work with students and teachers from all over Palestine, connecting them to students and volunteers from every continent except Antarctica. (If anyone from Antarctica is reading this then please do get in touch :-))
Read MoreSPAIN
This is where one of our trustees, Scott, our learning coordinator, Sara, and many of our volunteers live. Scott introduced the Hands Up Project to an audience of thousands of teachers from around the world when he showed this video below at the end of his plenary at the 2016 IATEFL conference. Sara first stared working as a volunteer with HUP in 2015 when her students in Mallorca and Sahar Salha's students in Gaza performed some plays from Stories Alive through Zoom to each other. >> YouTube
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