April 23 2024: A. of Tuba Moving Heaven and Earth to provide Children with School Education

The villages where the children reside are marked with crimson rectangles. A-Tuwani where their school is located, is marked with a green rectangle.  A larger map of Massafer Yatta can be found here. To see the broader surroundings around Massafer Yatta, go to B’Tselem’s interactive map and zoom towards the very south of the West Bank.

To our friends all,

For seven months now, the children of Tuba and Maghayir al-‘Abeed in Massafer Yatta have very rarely gone to school. Their school is located in in a-Tuwani some 1.5-2 km away, but in the middle there are hostile and violent Israeli settlements.

In 2004, when harassment of these children increased, and under the pressure of peace organizations, a ruling was formulated by the Knesset Committee on Education, that the children would go to school and back, accompanied by the army. In this manner, for nearly 20 years, until war broke out, children walked to their schools accompanied by the military.

At the outbreak of the present war, the army’s accompaniment ceased without any warning, nor any information about its renewal. At the same time, studied ceased for a while all across the West Bank [and most of Israel]. Several weeks later, studies in a-Tuwani were resumed in a partial pattern, 2-3 days a week. (Israel stopped handing over the money it owes routinely to the Palestinian Authority, so teachers’ salaries were reduced up to one-third). The children of a-Tuwani and Susya who go to school at a-Tuwani came back to study part-time, but the children of Tuba and Maghayir al-‘Abeed could not.

Around December dear A., an organizer from Tuba, began to transport the children in his car (the only highway-legal vehicle in his village) assisted by activists’ vehicles, taking a longer, harder roundabout route. But he had to stop because the Palestinian Ministry of Education at Yatta forbade him, fearing that the army would rid itself permanently of its accompaniment assignment. Via the spokesperson for the Israeli military’s Central Command, I found out that as of now, the army will not resume this duty. I forwarded this information to A., who forwarded it to the Ministry office at Yatta. The head of that office continued to insist, on the ban, because this would be grounds for the army not to return. In the meantime, I try to convince the children of these two villages to study in two alternate schools deeper into Massafer Yatta and away from settlements: the high school at Fakhit and the elementary school at Safai, a walking distance away. Middle-schoolers and high-schoolers would also walk to Safai, and from there a vehicle provided by the PA would take them to Fakhit.

But the high school children do not want to change schools, whereas the elementary school children are not allowed by their parents to walk to Safai, for fear that the settlers would find them on the way there too. The head of the Palestinian Education Ministry at Yatta still refused to let A. transport the children to a-Tuwani, even only the middle-schoolers and high-schoolers , five of them all in all.

Children in Tuba, April 16

H., our close friend from Hebron, knows the regional head of the education department personally, and arranges a meeting in order to convince him to be flexible, because the army will not return to its accompaniment duties in the foreseeable future. After this meeting, H. reports to me that the refusal is still in full force. I advise H. to try again, insisting that according to international law, every child has the right to go to school. H. gets back to the department head, and he finally agrees.

A. receives the happy news from me that very evening. The children are excited. The next day, A. cannot drive them – he is the only driver with a highway-legal car in the village, and a critical patient must get to the hospital. A. shares with me the fact that he would not be able to take the children consistently. One time someone is ill, another time he must drive residents to lodge a complaint (all this time, settlers harass the villagers of Tuba and Maghayir al-‘Abeed), and in general – since the children study only 2-3 days a week…

I feel that I’m becoming a nag, having pressured poor A. over the school issue again and again, and finally, during our umpteenth nightly call, I let go. I understand the pressure under which young A. has to function, and say to him: “My dear man, I realize your situation. You bear a disproportionate amount of responsibility. I am only sorry for the children. They want so much to get back to school and see those classmates who have already come back. But let us let go and pray that the next school year will bring a new reality, Inshallah.” The next day, A. called me: “I am taking the children to school. True, children must go to school. I’ll do my best.”

On the morning of Sunday, April 21st, three girls and two boys festively prepare their school outfit and rise on , to reach the school which they have missed for 4 months. A call from A. stops them before leaving: the Israeli army killed 10 Palestinians in Tulkarem. A general strike has been declared throughout the West Bank.

In the evening, the children prepare their clothes again, and get up excited the next morning to go to school. On Monday morning a call from A. holds them back again: the Jews’ Passover holiday has caused the army to close off all passage to and from Yatta, and the teachers cannot get to school.

In the evening, with the determination of children refusing to give in, they prepare their clothes again. Perhaps tomorrow? In the morning they are excited again. At noon on Tuesday the 23rd, I met them at a-Tuwani. They finished a day of school. A. Waited for them at the center of the village in order to bring them home. In fact it was another day of total closure [due to Passover], but A. who spoke with the teachers in the morning said the teachers recommended they begin to walk and he would pick them up on their way to school, and so he did. A. the wizard.

And I – when I saw the children and their happy smiles and enjoyed their warm hugs, I was flooded with their deep gratitude flowing to me, to A., to the world; although they have so little, it seems to them that the whole world is theirs, and seeing this I need no further words…

Erella, on behalf of the Villages Group

Dec. 11-15: Local Organizer Gets Tuba Kids to School around Settler Blockade, and Other Updates

Tuba is in east-central Massafer Yatta. A-Tuwani and its school are to its northwest, near the main road; and Khalet a-Dabe’ to its southwest, near the bottom of this map inset. A larger map of Massafer Yatta can be found here. To see the broader surroundings, go to B’Tselem’s interactive map and zoom towards the very south of the West Bank.

Dear friends,

I did not write this week. Ya’ir wrote about Khalat A-Dab a’, and that is already enough for a whole month… But naturally that is not how this works. Things keep happening on the ground the whole time. Past continues into present that continues into what in all probability appears to be tomorrow.  

• On Monday, December 11, 2023, A. went forth from Emneizal (in the far southwest of Massafer Yatta) to plow his own land with his donkey and plow. Uniformed, armed settlers forced him out of his field, and with blows and threats forced him to walk by his donkey to the checkpoint nearest the village (about 2.5 kilometers). There they robbed him of his plow ,and after some hours left him.
• That day, in the same village, S.’s tractor was taken.
• Two days later, settlers punctured the two water tanks belonging to I. of Wadi Jeh’eish (1km north of Emneizal).
• That very same day, settlers from around Avigail finally finished off the remains of M.’s car in Umm Barid, which they had already vandalized about a month ago, when they destroyed his home and field three times over. Today’s destruction was done while we were visiting the family at its temporary residence in the neighboring village of Sha’ab Al Butum.
• On Tuesday we visited Tuba, sitting in the beautiful cave of U. and his family. Even long before the current war, Tuba farmers suffered harassment from their neighbors of Havat Ma’on. Now during the war, this harassment has crossed all red lines. “Yesterday, as I began to plow my field next to my home”, U. says, “colonists came and told me I couldn’t plow my field now because there’s a war going on.” With his touching innocence, he tells us: “I didn’t understand what one thing had to do with the other, but there was no one to talk to. They were armed and threatening, and they entered my house as if it were theirs. They also humiliate us. They said to my nephew: ‘You will plow and sow, and our sheep will graze in your field.’ That’s what they said, and that’s what they do. They bring their flocks to our fields and we have nothing left for our own flocks.” He speaks with the deep pain of one who is desperate, but has no intention of giving up his life there. This is such a destructive combination, I think, and I have no solace to offer. I can only contain the pain, frustration and desperation, and promise to distribute this far and wide, and continue coming to visit.

We then visited another family in this small village. A large family, most of whose children and grandchildren go to school. There we heard a more hopeful update for a change:

Tuba children attend school at a-Tuwani, a larger village about a 15-minute walk away. Ever since Havat Ma’on settled between Tuba and a-Tuwani in 1997, the children could no longer take the shorter route because of settler violence, and must take a roundabout route, two hours there and two hours back. In 2004, after great efforts by human rights and peace organizations active on the ground, government echelons decided that the children would be accompanied by an army jeep with soldiers. For 19 years, Tuba children – some of them already parents of the present children – had taken the shorter route accompanied by the Israeli army.

As soon as war broke out, this has stopped, but so have studies at the school. Ten days ago school finally resumed, but the soldiers have yet to return. The children from A-Tuwani go to school, but the children from Tuba and neighboring Mughayir al-Abeed cannot get there. All routes are dangerous. They are all threatened by the vandals, who now dress themselves up in uniform as if they were soldiers. The educational gap keeps growing. For two months now the children have studied online, while exposed to the frequent violent settler attacks on their villages. Now, when they can finally resume their frontal studies at school – a basic right to which any child is entitled – the children of Tuba and Maghayir al-Abid are denied it.

As soon as we parked the car, I already saw 14-year-old S. running to me with her priceless smile. She was followed by the rest of the family’s children, all happy as can be. “We were in school today!”, S. answers the question I didn’t even have time to ask. The light in her eyes drove away at once all the suffering, the humiliation, beatings and frustrations, reducing the desperation and empowering even the parents and grandparents who gathered there.

“How did you get there?” I asked, after we hugged excitedly. “A. took us in a car” the chorus answered. A. from Tuba finished this school seven years ago, graduated University and came back to the village to become a peace activist. He wouldn’t accept Tuba children not studying. So, he saw to it that they got to school. He crowded them into his car which has four seats, and drove them from Tuba to the main road. Three kilometers of a potholed track which are difficult even under normal circumstances. Whoever never saw this track winding from the village to the road, could hardly grasp such difficulty.

From the asphalt road it is still another nine kilometers to a-Tuwani. A. organized the pickup from there onwards, in two other human rights activists’ cars, to bring them to school. It’s an expensive solution (fuel and other car costs) and its coordination is complicated and never a sure thing. It all depends on what happens on the ground on a given day, to say nothing of too many children in a car meant for four (plus the driver) on the harsh route from Tuba to the main road. A. has been trying to make contact with the DCO (official coordination office between the IDF and the Palestinian Authority) in order to bring back the army’s accompaniment. In the meantime, no results. So many obstacles on the way to education…

Even these obstacles are softened by the children’s joy. I was privileged to witness it.

Erella, on behalf of the Village Group [translated by Tal Haran and Assaf Oron]

Summer Camps in South-Hebron/Massafer-Yatta, Against the Background of Military Oppression

A few days after the three youngsters from Umm al-Kheir returned from their detention (of which I told you about in my former letter, dated June 10), there started in Umm al-Kheir a summer camp for all the children of the place (3 to 13 years old). The summer camp consisted of two groups (a group of the small children and a group of the older children). The guides were four women from Umm al-Kheir itself: Na’ama, Sara, Ikhlas and Taghrid. We went to visit on Thursday, as we always do. It was the fifth day of the summer camp. Looking at the sights and hearing the voices – our hearts expanded . A small summer camp in the middle of the desert, in two tents that serve as a local community center (established with such effort and constantly under the threat of demolition). Yet the children are happy and the guides’ faces are beaming.

We stood there for a good two hours – Ophir, Limor and me – watching. Fun games seasoned occasionally by music activity (a delightful implementation of what the guides learned in a music workshop held in a nearby village in April and facilitated by Fabianne), relaxing breathing exercises, a tasty falafel in the break and plenty of joy.

At the end of the camp there was a trip. “Without a trip, the summer camp is not really worth it,” say the children, for whom going out of the constricting boundaries of the village was a formative event.

At the end of the ninth day of the camp the children return to their homes and meet there the security guard of Karmel (the nearby settlement), escorted by the army, the police and Civil Administration officials. For what went on there, see here.

We were glad we could at least enable the kids a summer camp (with the generous support of our friends from England).

A few days later started the summer camp in Susiya.

On our weekly visit we arrived on a cheerful camp day, guided by Yihya and Fatme, who were assisted by three local girls. One of the activities was a play the children prepared.
A local Palestinian family sits down to have its meal, when a young man bursts into their home and asks for refuge from soldiers who are chasing him and trying to catch him. The family quickly hides the young man but a collaborating neighbor informs on him and the soldiers enter the house, grab the young man, bit him, tie him and take him away with them.

A piece of reality. The children bring it into the play with all its complexity. The topic was chosen by them, without any guidance from the grownups. In a completely natural, though maybe not really conscious way, the children process their traumas, and the summer camp is a space that enables that.

The very next day, Civil Administration officers, accompanied by soldiers, arrived and delivered stop-work orders (precursors of demolition orders) to almost every family in Susiya (Limor wrote about it in her last report).

Since then events succeeded one another (as always, and a bit more). My writing pace falls behind the pace of the events we would like to share with you. I started writing this report at the end of June, when the summer camps ended. And here we are, past the middle of August, and every passing day increases the important “debt” – to tell their stories.

Sometimes the two camps – the going-to-the-field one and the writing-about-the-field one – clash within me. Usually the first one wins …

Many thanks to each and every one who contributed, in funds or spirit, so these summer camps could have taken place, and successfully so.

We are thankful and our friends are thankful, through us. And the children? The photos will tell their happiness …

Yours, with much love,

Erella (in the name of the members of the Villages Group)

May 21, 2011: Music Teachers and Students from Tel-Aviv Visit Salem’s Music Center

Last Saturday, May 21st, 2011, the music center in Salem village near Nablus hosted teachers and pupils of Tel Aviv Municipal Arts High School A. This visit is a result of the ties that the school principal, Ram Cohen, and Dr. Ruthie Katz, the school’s music major coordinator, began to nurture with the Salem Music Center

Last summer. About two months ago, the staff of the music center visited the Tel Aviv Arts High School. They attended a demonstration class prepared for them by Mario Solan, musical expression teacher, and his students, Itamar Bellaiche and Noam Da Kalo. Last Saturday, Itamar and Noam arrived with their mothers Anna and Mali for their first visit at the Salem Music Center and joined a class that took place there, together with Mario and the center’s teachers Jubeir, Wasim and Amid.

Mario’s and Itamar’s clarinet performance enabled the pupils at the center to acquaint themselves with this wind instrument, that has been almost unfamiliar to them until now.

The class began with movement and expression exercises led by David Steinberg, coordinator of the Tel Aviv school’s drama major.

Visiting – beside these guests from the Tel Aviv school – were also Dr. Dochi Lichtenstein of the School for Music Education at Levinsky Teachers Seminar, and Noam Ben Ze’ev, music critic for Haaretz newspaper.

For us, members of the Villages Group who have been following the Salem Music Center program from its onset two years ago, yesterday’s visit was a pleasure and a milestone in the ties we have been tending with the people of this village for the past eight years. Cooperation with the Tel Aviv musicians augments the workshops given by Dr. Felicity Lawrence of Newcastle University at the Salem Center in November 2010 and April 2011. These activities open a window to different and varied musical worlds for the students and teachers in this village, among whose population of 6,000 there was only one single musician until a year ago.

As we updated you last month, the children at the Salem Music Center will be needing more musical instruments from this point on to further their studies and musical development, and enable a new class of students to join. The list of instruments includes 4 violins, 3 ouds, 2 tablas, 4 organs, 3 classical guitars, 1 bass guitar and 1 accordion.

Several donors have already helped us with the donations of one large organ, one accordion and a violin. We appeal to all those who might assist this, whether by donating instruments or making a financial contribution, to contact us as soon as possible. The children’s summer vacation, beginning in about three weeks, is activity-intensive at the center, and we would like to facilitate it with all the necessary instruments in time.

Please feel free to approach me for more information.

Sincerely,

Ehud Krinis (ksehud “at” gmail) for the Villages Group

Sometimes Dreams Do Come True: Children’s Music Center in Salem Opens

On the 10th of March 2010, after conducting entrance exams for more than 300 children from Salem (a Palestinian village near Nablus), and for the first time in the history of the village, 18 children have started their music studies, in the spirit of the vision presented in the proposal for this program.

Eleven girls and 7 boys gather three times a week, for 3 hours each time, in the rooms provided by the  local council in the council’s building.  Leading the program is Jubier Ishtayya from the village of Salem. The coordinator – Fadi – is from Salem as well. Jubier teaches traditional instruments- the Ud, and Tabla, as well as the organ. Another teacher, Amid from Nablus, teaches violin and guitar.  The children haven’t yet chosen their personal instruments. They are in the basic stage of learning how to connect the tunes, notes and instruments.

We, Ehud and Erella from the Villages Group, visited them on Friday, 2.4.10 during one of our regular visits to Salem. It felt that us from Israel, and kids, teachers, coordinator and parents in this Palestinian village, were all playing the same music on the same piano. A bit strange in the abnormal reality we all experience each day.

The initial budget, to set up the program and finance the first 6 months of activities, was generously donated by dear and sensitive people from Australia. We are already working on finding the financial resources to enable the program to continue.  Please forward this report to people you think might be interested to know about, and support this program.

Report From A Massafer Yatta School – South Hebron Hills 7.3.2010

In a joint initiative of the Village Group and Machsom Watch, we went this Sunday (7.3) on a tour to Massafer Yatta – the heart of the cave dwellers area in South Hebron Hills.

Our guides were Hamed from Hebron and Ezra from Taayush. As you may remember from a previous report, the Massafer villages have been under heavy pressure from the Israeli military:

• Pressure from a lot of dirt barriers along the main passageways between the Massafer villages;
• likewise from the unceasing pursuit of military vehicles after Palestinian employment seekers who come from the Hebron area and who move along these paths in hope of finding work in the towns of south Israel.

During our tour, the military surprisingly showed no sign of their presence, seemingly honoring  the first appearance of women from MachsomWatch in the area. This fact was well exploited by the continuous movement of employment seekers’ Subaru cars – a phenomenon that is presently a burden for the permanent residents of Massafer.

The barriers themselves were open – a sign that  the struggle led by attorney Limor Yehuda from the Association for Civil Rights in Israel to keep them open is meanwhile yielding fruit. However, the dirt road used as a main passage way in this area is in rather a bad state and in some places (as can be seen in the attached photographs) is almost impassable even in a jeep.

During the tour we arrived at a primary school (grades 1-4, 42 students), that opened this year at the cave dwellers village of Fachit in the heart of the Masafer area. The photographs we took tell it all: Over and above the good intentions of the aid organizations that enabled the opening of this school (two major International organizations – Care International and the Red Cross, and a local one – Health Work Committees), the infrastructure they established: several tents, chairs and blackboards and toilets – are extremely  minimal and lacking. At the moment, about five months after the opening, weather conditions have made the place completely  unusable.

It is not an exaggeration to say that no other school in our region (i.e. the entire Middle East) operates under such difficult conditions.

And, nonetheless, students continue to arrive (although not when we were there) by means of the vehicle recently bought with donations we managed to get.

We thank Michal and Nurit from Machsom Watch South who came on the tour and hope that from now on the Massafer area will remain permanently on the map for the monitoring tours by this important organization.

Ehud Krinis

Yasmin Opens the Braille Little Oxford Dictionary

One of our Villages Group’s strongest connections is with Yasmin Gebara, a very special young woman from the village of Salem near Nablus. Yasmin is blind from birth.  A younger brother, Muhammad, is also blind. In September 2004, Yasmin’s father Saael, a taxi driver, was killed in cold blood by Yehoshua Elitzur, from the nearby Itamar settlement. Elitzur was sentenced in an Israeli court for eight years, but then fully exploited the pro-settler leniency of the Israeli justice system who let him go home before reporting to jail, and has probably escaped the country without serving a single day.

In the meanwhile, Yasmin’s Mother Muna was left on her own with six children in the ages 9-18. We started to visit Yasmin’s family regularly after Saael’s murder. During this period of five and half years we accompanied Yasmin in her long way from the senior year in Salem high school, through  four years term of academic studies in the Nablus university.

In January, we celebrated with Yasmin her graduation from university in the field of English Literature. During this celebration, Yasmin read for us from the Braille a poem of her in English, written especially for this occasion. Erella from the Villages Group read to Yasmin our greetings, praised Yasmin’s unique personality and great achievements and her supportive family (especially her late father and her devoted mother). Yasmin applied to be an English teacher in the Ramallah School for blinds. Hopefully, she will be accepted for this job.

Also last month, we sent an email plea to our list of friends, if anyone can help Yasmin continue and develop her English by sending her CDs of English poetry and English literature – and especially an English-English Braille dictionary and/or Arabic-English\English-Arabic Braille dictionaries.

Before we had time to post this plea online, it was already answered. Jamal and Georgina from London sent Yasmin the “Little Oxford Dictionary” in Braille. Since this dictionary has 39 volumes, I assume that if anyone wants to send Yasmin the “Big Oxford Dictionary”, you will need to hire an entire ship! Also, Yasmin can enjoy now from Shakespeare’s Midsummer Night’s Dream on CD’s sent to her by Edna from Herzliya.

We wish Yasmin success in her future plans, and thanks again to all who pitched in to help.

Ehud

A Visit to Huda’s Preschool at Hashem Al-Daraj

This week we visited in Huda’s preschool at Hashem Al- Daraj (sometimes known as Umm Daraj). It is located in the Judean desert deep inside area C of the Oslo accord map.

[update: the report linked above to Hashem Al-Daraj’s name, a report authored by the Palestinian Authority, has many inaccuracies. Among other things, it says that Huda’s preschool had closed. As we testify here, it is still open! The PA has no real presence at Hashem Al-Daraj, like in most of area C, and its reports are based on indirect sources]

My three colleagues (all of them experts in education for early age) and myself, were the first foreigners ever to visit this preschool, so naturally the kids were afraid of us in the beginning.

Huda’s preschool opened some four years ago and it survived until now with almost no facilities and no budget. Huda works alone there with more than 20 children, and receives a monthly salary of $140 from an NGO in Hebron. In such conditions, all the other preschools that opened in this Bedouin peripheral area at the same time as Huda’s, had closed long ago.

Certainly, Huda is a local hero of the noblest kind.

Working in almost complete isolation, Huda was very much pleased from our visit, and thanks us for the toys we brought to the children, donated by some good Israelis. Still, it seems that what this preschool lacks the most is an annual budget which would enable Huda to purchase the most basic means – items needed for the operation of every preschool, such as blackboards, paper, pencils, etc.

If you send us donations designated for Huda’s preschool, we will use them entirely for that purpose.

Ehud Krinis

Villages Group

A Workshop at Kibbutz Shoval With Friends from South Mt. Hebron

Shalom Friends,

We held a small workshop at Kibbutz Shoval on Thursday-Friday, 11-12.2.

The workshop was initiated by Fatima, our colleague from Susya, for the purpose of creating a basis for local cooperation in the area of South Mt. Hebron.

We have visited South Mt.Hebron every week for years now and enjoyed the hospitality of our friends there; we were very glad of the opportunity to host some of our friends from that area in our home.

Three couples joined us for the workshop: Fatima and Khaled from Susya/Yata, Na’ama and Eid and Sara and Aziz from Umm al- Kheir. Part of the workshop was to enable our friends from South Mt. Hebron, who were visiting us for the first time, to get to know us better, the circumstances of our lives and the place we live in – Kibbutz Shoval. We also visited the local preschool, where the guests spoke with the teachers and the children.

The workshop was also devoted to discussions concerning possibilities of development for young Palestinians in the area of South Mt. Hebron, in light of the internal problems of life in a traditional society, and the external circumstances of life under Israeli occupation.

We are grateful to Buma and Danny (who also took the great photos attached) for the help they gave us during the workshop, and hope that the momentum created in this first course of action will continue and expand in the near future.

Sincerely,

Ehud and Erella

The Village Group

Visit to Salem on Hanuka Eve

Friday. The day of the first candle of Hanukah Jewish feast. We are on the way to Salem village with Carin (an Australian young woman who helps us to develop the music project there). It is nice to go there on the day of the first candle. Visiting our friends and developing the next step of the children music center there, feels like lighting a candle.

It is just that on the way we’ve planned to visit another friend in Yasouf village, and buy some olive oil from him. Just before entering his village he called us on phone to tell us not to come because some settlers had “lit a Hanuka candle” their way by burning the Mosque of the village. Just two different ways to light a candle.

Not much of a joy accompanied us along the rest of the day. The only strength we’ve felt was the strength of the unconditional friendship between ourselves and with our Palestinian friends.

Here is a video about the music center, prepared by Natti Adler:

Here is Carin’s description of the visit as posted on her “Looking for Shalom” blog:

You know what? I am exhausted. It feels like I never stop. My journeys into the West Bank are long and tiring. But what can I say? I am addicted. And today was a particularly special day. I would not have missed it for the world. I went to a place where I personally feel part of the peace efforts, and where many of you are personally part of the peace efforts.

I went to Salem, a Palestinian village in the northern part of the West Bank, around 2km from the major city of Nablus. I joined two kibbutzniks, Erella and Ehud, from the Villages Group for their weekly family visits. The main reason we went to Salem was to visit Jubier Ishtayya, a local musician and teacher who is starting a music centre with your help.

Erella met Jubier a few years ago. They connected over a common dream to create peace through music. Well, peace is actually the word I chose. Erella and Jubier are more grounded than that. They do not have any grandiose ideas about peace. Instead, they believe in the transformative power of music. They believe that music is a tool for developing creative minds, rather than destructive ones. The music centre will be a place of learning, artistic expression and concerts; a centre for healing and hope.

I met Ehud, Erella and Jubier earlier this year and I was blown away. Not by the idea of the project, that was not new to me, but by the spirit, the energy and the relationship between these three people. Their idea was well thought out, realistic, and targeted at a particularly vulnerable group: boys and girls in their late teens, living in extreme conditions, with few employment opportunities, and nothing to do in the afternoons. The centre will start small, but they have big plans for the future.

And the dream was made possible because of support from many of you. So tonight, even YOU can put smiles on your faces. The music center will open in January, half the students will be girls and half boys. The head of the village has provided the space and political support for the project.

It is wonderful to feel part of a concrete project on the ground; particularly one that I so strongly believe in. This gives me hope. And I promise, before I finish this journey, I will provide you with plenty more ideas for how you can stay engaged.

20 days to go…
Images of the Salem Music Center can be found here.