15th - 21st March 2013
See more photos of the program
As part of the partnership between the JAI and Nørre Nissum Efterskole in Denmark, the JAI organized a co-planned six day program in Palestine, from the 15th to the 21st of March 2013, for the Global Teenagers class which consists of 34 students, aged between 16 and 18, who were accompanied on the trip by two teachers, school headmaster, a member of the school board, a DanChurchAid staff, and two teachers from an other school which is interested in starting a similar program.
Their trip included interaction with 17 Palestinian high school students, lectures, presentations, guided tours in Bethlehem, Jerusalem and Hebron, as well as helping Palestinian farmers planting olive trees in their fields.
The students and their teachers arrived in Beit Sahour early in the morning. After a few hours of sleep, the Danish students met the Palestinian students for some ice breaking games in the YMCA hall - Beit Sahour. The aim of the games was to get to know each other and to learn more about the daily life and the culture in Palestine and in Denmark. With a lot of enthusiasm the mixed groups performed pantomimic pictures about their dream jobs, favorite subjects at school and their preferred destinations for a journey. The Danish students prepared some questions in advance for short talks in a group of two. The Danish and the Palestinian students shared their thoughts about topics like future plans, activities at weekends as well as they talked about their meaning of freedom. The games helped to break the ice very quickly.
The short briefing about the YMCA-YWCA and especially the JAI and the campaigns was followed by a half day of olive tree planting on a Palestinian field inside the Gush Etzion Israeli settlement block, south-west of the Bethlehem area. The Danish together with the Palestinian students planted around 300 trees in these threatened fields. To work together in mixed groups helped to know each other better. The trees are sponsored by the Nørre Nissum Efterskole, which is captured on a gratitude plaque that field. After hard day's work all the students came together for a proud group picture with the plaque in the middle.
On the following morning both student groups met at the Roman Catholic school. After short information about Palestine and Denmark presented by the students, the group had sub-groups guided tours with students inside the school and they had some joint sport activities as football, basketball and badminton. In the afternoon the Danish group witnessed the wall in Bethlehem and the confiscated land as well as they learned about the refugee issue at the Lajee center at the Aida refugee camp. At the evening it was time for the home stay with a Palestinian students' families. During the home stay the students had the chance to get in touch with the daily Palestinian life and to learn more about the culture. It was also a good chance to meet the whole family.
After a day with an own program in Tel Aviv, the group visited Jerusalem. The passage through the checkpoint in Bethlehem was done quickly; less Palestinians than normally could cross to Jerusalem because of security reason due to the visit of President Obama this week. In two sub-groups they visited the old city with the important religious sites as the Church of Sepulcher, the Western Wall and the Al-Aqsa Mosque as well as they witnessed the settlements inside the Muslim Quarter and the hard conditions of a life as a Palestinian inside the old city.
On the next day the group visited the Danish-Palestinian house in Ramallah and went to Bil'in, a small village near Ramallah where Israel confiscated most of the agricultural land. The Popular Resistance Committee and the inhabitants from Bil'in demonstrate every Friday against the wall - since more than eight years. It was very impressive to see that the people of Bil'in achieved the displacement of the apartheid wall for some hundred meters. But also it was oppressive to see the large settlement – still under construction for extension - behind the wall on Palestinian owned land. Lastly the group also visited Arafat' tomb before going back to Bethlehem for a guided tour inside the Nativity Church. In the evening the Palestinian students performed a Dabka show and after that, all together enjoyed a dinner at the Tent restaurant.
The last day the group went to Hebron, where they got a geopolitical briefing at the TIPH about the background, then had a guided tour in the divided old city and inside the Ibrahimi mosque. Inside the city the group had to cross many military checkpoints, were reported on monitoring cameras and saw the immense military presence as well as the settlements in the second floor of Palestinian houses and the Shuhada street with the closed shops. They witnessed, that armed Israeli soldiers prevented Palestinians to enter the Shuhada Street.
During the six days the students got a lot of impressions and experiences, which they can take home and stay involved. And of course, new friendships were founded.