The Right to Education Campaign
Not by chance, Israel over the years has developed a systematic and planned policy that denies Palestinians the right to education. In the occupied West Bank this manifests itself mainly through the demolition of schools, assaults on schools and the harassment of school children at checkpoints as well as
the detention of children. Israel weaponizes the denial of education as an essential element in its ethnic cleansing policies, attempting to push people out of their communities in order to protect the rights of their children.
Over 38 Bedouin communities in the Jordan Valley are directly suffering from he threat of school demolitions. In many other places, such as Masafer Yatta, schools are being targeted. Since we launched the Right to Education Campaign in June 2020, we have been relentlessly working to defend Palestinians’ human right to education through advocacy and lobbying tools internationally and actions on the
ground. As regards to our efforts on the ground, in 2021 and 2022, we have done the
following:
Rebuilding of schools in the Jordan Valley
- Renovating a kindergarten in the village of Al-Jiftlik, which serves 20 kids.
- Building a kindergarten in the community of Khirbet Makhoul. The kindergarten is now well-equipped to meet the needs of 12 students from the community. Before the construction of the kindergarten in Makhoul, students could not access pre-elementary education as there was no nearby kindergartens.
- Building two classrooms in the school of Al-Maleh. The Al-Maleh school serves 40 students from Al-Maleh, Ein Al-Helweh and AlFarisiyah. We built two more classrooms as the four classrooms that constitute the school cannot suffice the 40 students who attend it. However, Israeli bulldozers raided the school on October 25 and confiscated the two classrooms and an awning.
- Starting the construction of a school in Khirbet Ibziq.
Summer camps
Beyond the efforts to ensure children have access to formal education, we have also worked with communities to promote popular education, overcoming the limitations of the schooling systems and curricula. We organized three #summer_camps in 2022 in Masafer Yatta (South
Hebron Hills), Farkha (Salfit district), Dura (Hebron district). These camps aimed at creating an alternative space of education for children. 300 children (170 females and 130 males) aged between 7- 15 participated in these camps and benefited from the recreational and educational activities.
Activities focused on the following themes/issues:
1) Raising awareness about the history and geography of Palestine through songs, drawings and storytelling.
2) Teaching children how to recycle different items as a way to engage them in environmentally friendly activities; in addition to drawing as a recreational activity.
3) Holding activities about theatre, drama and music in order to prepare a band of children to sing and perform in the celebrations that took place in the last day of the camp.
4) Doing physical exercises and holding sessions that focused on the mental health of the participants.
