Kalandia Youth MediA

I arrived in the West Bank on a Friday, a holiday for Muslims. Kalandia camp was deserted, all the green and blue-painted shop doors shuttered. I had two pieces of luggage with me, one for my own belongings and one full of cameras, tripods, and other supplies for the media arts program. I have never felt as conspicuous as that day, rolling those two bright suitcases around in the middle of the day in a deathly quiet refugee camp.

Now that I’m settled in here and I’ve recovered from jet lag, I thought I could begin the media arts program. But the program requires youth and right now, all of the kids aged 10 and up are writing their school-end exams. I come to the centre each day and there are a handful of children, aged 5-8, who play games on the computers and practice dancing.

All exams will be finished by next week. For now, I am speaking with the president of the centre and one of the coordinators to create a working plan for making my program sustainable. Crafting a mission statement, creating a teaching plan, landing volunteers, and fundraising  were easy tasks compared to making this program last. Many questions need to be asked: When I leave in late August for Toronto, what will happen to this program? How do I get this program to carry on once I leave? How do I get more volunteers involved when there are off-putting, extreme travel warnings for the region? How do I create the foundation for an exciting program where the kids anticipate using media daily?

I have faith in the youth Centre staff. They have been supportive of my idea from the beginning, offering their time and encouragement. The co-ordinator here has kept me going with his own ideas about possible sources for continued funding. We have spoken about the possibility of expanding the program to other refugee camps, as well, connecting the youth to produce a dynamic summer-end project, such as a short documentary or a series of photographs revolving around a theme.

A lesson I’ve learned from my “Intro to Non-Profit Organizations” class and from my experience here so far: working for tangible change requires numerous meetings and a lot of planning. There is no such thing as “just doing it”. When there are so many people and organizations involved- local as well as international- every step of an initiative should be fully understood by all parties involved. And, especially since I will be working with hundreds of youth, everyone needs to be on board.

As I mentioned, there aren’t many kids at the youth centre for now. The kids who are here will be travelling to Italy in July to participate in a cultural exchange. The youth centre facilitates this trip every year, in collaboration with an Italian NGO, Vento di Terra. Every day that I’m here, they practice singing folk songs and dancing Dabkeh (a traditional Palestinian dance).

As I write, four girls are in the main room, stomping their feet and sweeping the floor with their heels, in the midst of an energetic Dabkeh dance. In about 15 minutes, they’ll be back in this computer lab at my side, practicing their English on me and laughing at my accented Arabic replies. They ask for my name, question me about my family, and beseech me to dance with them, smiling all the while. We talk about their lives in Arab-lish (Arabic English?) and share jokes while I drink strong Turkish coffee.