Salem’s Music Center

Dear friends and Supporters,

We accompanied Salem’s music center since it was started more than three years ago. Walking hand in hand with the center’s staff and students was and is a challenging and rewarding experience for us. There is hardly anything that can match the satisfaction of exposing the children of a poor, neglected and brutally occupied village to the wonders of learning to play on musical instruments.

From the beginning of this program we were very much aware of our limitations as a small group of volunteers we can’t carry for long a project which expand and grow year by year, such as Salem’s music center, neither organizationally nor financially. Our colleagues in the staff of the center are sharing with us the awareness of those limitations. At this stage we all feel time has arrived for them to take full responsibility for the center’s financial needs as the responsibility they took from the beginning concerning the professional aspects.

Returning to his hometown Nablus after several years of studies abroad, the center’s new coordinator, Abdullah Kharoub is seeking to use his natural charm and wit as well as his acquired skills, for the benefit of the children of his area. The time when the center would be able to walk on its feet with the help of well-established organizations has not  arrived yet; it is on its way. In order to fulfill this goal the center still needs to pass through some stages such as official recognition; they work hard to get it. In the meantime the maintenance of the center’s activities still requires support.

In this attached file you will find a newsletter written by Abdullah with the cooperation of the Villages Group.

This by itself is a huge step of the center towards maturity.

Those of you, dear friends, who want to relate, please contact Abdullah abdkharoub@gmail.com  (we can be added as addressee). That is one of the ways through which we seek to enable the center’s staff to grow into a new phase of independence.

Erella Dunayevsky and Ehud Krinis in the name of the Villages Group villagesgroup1@gmail.com

Support Needed for An Enrichment Class at Mufaqra – A Letter from Ali al-Hamamde

Dear Friends and supporters,

Since the beginning of our relationships with villagers from South Mount Hebron and from the Nablus area, we have been trying to work with the people, and not instead or for the people. At the beginning, we, members of the Villages Group, took upon us to maintain the connections with people around the world. Gradually, the villagers themselves begin to take responsibility for these connections, something that is  really foreign to their culture. This and language barriers (Hebrew and/or English) are some of the challenges we are facing and so we still have a long way to go in this regard.

Last year we shared with our friends in Israel and abroad a request for assistance in funding a learning enrichment program for the children Mufaqra (see here). The annual budget of the project is estimated at 4,500 USD / 3,300 Euro / 2,600 Pound; most of the budget is needed for salary and the remainder for supplies. We would appreciate any donation; please contact us at this email if you are able to donate. We realize that we keep on sending request for support but at the end of the day this is indicative of the dire conditions in South Mount Hebron. Hopefully together we would be able to support our fellow Palestinians friends.  

With much love, 

Erella (in the name of the Villages Group)

 

In the name of God the Merciful, the Compassionate

Hello and greetings,

I would like to express my deep appreciation and gratitude to the members of the Villages Group and to everyone who helps them help us. All of you are dedicating much attention to the people of South Mount Hebron and investing a lot of effort in trying to get to know the situation in which people are living, their needs and the areas in which they need support. 

Among other fields in which we received support, the people of the Villages Group have helped us in education. One of the ways to assist in this field is to financially support university students so they can finish their degree within reasonable time (usually studies take a long time because of financial difficulties), and return to their villages and contribute to the advancement of education there. I am one of the students who benefited from your assistance. I spent six years in university, because of financial hardships, actions of the Israeli occupation and transportation difficulties. Without your help my studies would have taken at least ten years. 

After graduating and receiving my degree I didn’t find a job, like many of my fellow students. The members of the Villages Group knew that the children of Umm Fakra need support in their studies and offered me to teach them after school hours in order to strengthen their abilities. I built a learning enrichment program and we have implemented it and maintained this framework during the passing year. Meetings were held three times a week. During these meetings we would repeat the material studied in class and solve problems the children encountered. I would identify the children who are weaker in their studies and I invested in them in order to advance them. The stronger ones also got their share, thanks to the small size of the pupils’ group. I felt that this framework answers real needs – the children came willingly and made progress. I myself felt great responsibility towards them. As someone living in the village I know how much the children need learning and educational support, in addition to what they manage to acquire at school.

What enabled this enrichment were the funds we received from you. The children, the parents and I would like this enrichment program to continue. This year too – we need your help.

I thank in advance everyone who would enable the learning enrichment program in Umm Fakra to continue this year.

With much respect,

Ali al-Hamamde

Demolition in Mufaqra

Dear friends,

Perhaps you have read in recent days about the decision of the Israeli government to build more houses in settlements throughout the West Bank as a response to the Palestinian appeal to the UN. But most probably you have not heard (and probably will not hear in the media) about the actions of the occupation authorities that early today demolished a mosque in the cave-dwellers village of Mufaqra. The police, representatives of the civil administration and soldiers of the IDF (read: Israeli Demolition Forces) arrived at the village at sunrise, closed down the area surrounding the mosque and used two bulldozers to demolish the building. It is worthwhile mentioning that the mosque that was demolished today was built on the ruins of a former mosque that was destroyed roughly a year ago.

As soon as the information reached us we called Fadel, a friend from Mufaqra who described the fear among the people of the village and especially among the kids that were on their way to school when the demolition occurred. Fadel told us that he asked one of the army officers why do they demolish the mosque and the response was: “today we demolish the mosque but as soon as we get the court order we will demolish your house as well.”

Below is a picture of the mosque that we took a few weeks ago and photos that were taken today by activists from Operation Dove during the demolition.

We will visit the people of Mufaqra later this week and hope to communicate to you more information and impressions from the field.

On behalf of the other members of the Villages Group,

Ophir Münz-Manor

A Short Report from the Cave Dwellers Village of Tuba

Dear friends,

 

Wednesday Nov. 14, 2012

In the midst of sirens and bombs in our area as part of the recent war between Israel and Gaza, I received a telephone call from Hamed from Hebron asking if we are safe. Five minutes later we received a telephone call from Eid inviting us to come to Um el Khair in South Mount Hebron because it is safer there. “It is Thursday tomorrow” I told him, “and we come at any rate.”

 

Thursday Nov. 15, 2012     

We go to South Mount Hebron. Dany and David from Tel Aviv, Ophir from Jerusalem, David Clinch from North Devon in Britain and myself from Shoval coming after a night without much sleep, trying to cope with  the ugly music of the sirens.  It is a bit surrealistic to go to South Mount Hebron in the West Bank  and feel safer… I thought to myself. It was a short while thought since I knew already that it was not safe at all for the kids of Tuba two days ago while walking to school and being attacked by four masked settlers throwing stones at them.

We enter the cave of Omar’s family. Some of his kids are there. Inshirakh tells us how she, amongst a group of fifteen kids of all school ages, went to school the day before yesterday and how the settlers came from the trees and attacked them; and how the soldiers who accompany the kids by a jeep send the settlers away (without taking their names or arresting them.) She says she was afraid but continued to walk to school that day and the other days to come. They are used to be afraid, she says.

Does it matter to whom it is not safe? Since it is not safe to the kids it is not safe to me as well. And then it turns even more surrealistic. I am sitting in the cave in Tuba listening to Inshirakh’s  story , calling Mustafa (my friend in Gaza) asking how is he, and calling my husband to ask him if Shoval has been bombed…

I remember a paragraph of a story I wrote some years ago after the Cast Lead war in 2009: 

“…The First Intifada has ended. The Oslo Accords have evaporated. Israel has already sent in its army to occupy the Occupied West Bank and come out from this second Occupation into the first. The Second Intifada, too, has ended. The suicide bombings are over, for the time being. The First Lebanon War concluded the list of its buried. The Second as well. Rabin is already dead. Arafat is already dead. Sharon lives his own death. The elections in the Palestinian Authority brought the Hamas to power in Gaza. “Cast Lead” would take place in two years’ time, and when its wounds begin to heal, there will be “Cast Copper” or “Cast Silver” or any other appellation given in awe to the next war, the one that has not yet taken place but will surely come after “Cast Lead” that has not yet been cast, either, in 2007. We already know it was, however, because this story is being written now, in 2010. And the war that has not yet been will later be, and then will have been. In our region, for sheer wars for life, life is no longer sanctified. Only death.”

Hope for better days,

Yours with love, Erella (in the name of the other members of the Villages Group)

 

Inshirakh in her family’s cave