December Newsletter 2005

 Dear Friends of Hope Flowers,

We would start our newsletter with sending you our warmest greetings and appreciation.

In a few days, the first half of this school year which had started on Sept. 1^st will be finished with a great success despite of the hard situation we still live every day.

As this year comes to an end, we would share with you our activities and progress that we continued to achieve in 2005 with your support and faith in us.

The highlight event in 2005:   United States Congressmen Visit School:

Eight Congressmen from the US House of Representatives visited our school on May 30^th.  The group included eight prominent House members Congressman in addition to other members in the US Agency for International Development (USAID) and from the USA Consulate in Jerusalem. The group met with our faculty, attended a presentation, and discussed both the challenges facing our school and the school's great potential. This visit was very important for us and we hope that it could be as a launching pad for obtaining further assistance from individuals and institutions in the United States. 

Educational Progress:

Successful End of the Fall Semester; Our fall semester will be ended on December 26th^th with final exams and a celebration involving both our students and their parents.  The semester was started on Sept. 1^st with a remarkable increase in our enrollments. We had 250 students for this school year. Without any school postponements this semester, we were able to end the semester on time.  This has unfortunately become a rare event given the chaotic situation in Israel/Palestine since the year 2000.  We would like to thank our hardworking teachers and faculty, the surrounding community and people like you for making this semester a success.

Psychological Support Program: The Psychological Support Program at our school had started in the last scholastic year and was expanded and continued this year. It is run by two dedicated social workers and psychologists. The program helps teachers, students and their families dealing with the severe psychological problems that result from working in an area where violence is unfortunately a part of life. Beside their counseling work with the students and parents; they held a number of workshops for Palestinian teachers.  These workshops enabled many teachers to learn new educational techniques and to develop many productive relationships. 

Play Therapy: From June 1^st to the 5^th, our school hosted a training organized by the Hope Flowers School and the "Right to Play" Organization.   During the conference, our educational counselors developed many new games designed to teach our school's students valuable educational and social skills, including following directions, developing a strong memory, acting as a leader, helping others, and working in groups.  The counselors' new games will be put into practice in the other activities we carry on at the school.

Partnerships and Cultural Dialogue:

Friends Visit from Germany

During the semester, we were lucky enough to have several groups from Germany visit our school.  The first group from Potsdam stayed with us from March 22^nd to April 3^rd.   The second group came from our partner school in Frankfurt for three days in early April.  While they were here, the groups participated in many joint educational workshops, sports activities, and cultural events with both our students and faculty. 

Students and Teachers to Travel to Potsdam

Following our success with the two German groups, six students and two teachers will travel to Potsdam, Germany in the middle of July to attend a conference on the promotion of intellectual understanding between Israelis, Palestinians, and Germans.  Our teachers and students will join with others to engage in events designed to promote international understanding and peace such as workshops, sightseeing, and cultural seminars.

New partnership with a French School: in March 2005; a new joint program started with a school in France. This program is a kind of trilateral partnership including the Hope Flowers, an Israeli school in Haifa and Victory School in Paris. This project will be focusing on promoting intercultural dialogue between the students. The communication will start through the internet and the highlight of this project will be a trilateral meeting for the students.

International Conferences at Hope Flowers:

Peace Trees Bethlehem: one of the most interesting events in 2005 the Hope Flowers School was organizing a summer program called Peace Trees Bethlehem. Palestinian, Israelis and international volunteers planted trees together as symbol of peace, coexistence and unity of mankind. The program started on July18th -July 30^th, 2005. the program was supported by the People who sponsored planting a peace trees for $25.  certificate of appreciation were sent to donors. The Peace trees was officially opened by the Palestinian president Mr. Mahmoud Abas represented by Mr. Zuhair Manasra, Governor of Bethlehem who planted a peace tree on behalf of the president.

The Peace Trees Bethlehem program included Three days training on Compassionate Listening July 18^th – July 20^th, 2005 which was provided by Martin Dronsfield from the Earthstewards Network.

In addition, A training on Essential Peace Making was organized from July 21^st – 23^rd as part of the Peace Trees project. Essential Peacemaking: Women and Men was developed to go beyond past patterns of relating by honoring the strengths and natural wisdom each gender has to offer which emphasize on new communication skills, genuine practiced listening, and active dialogue.

Moreover, a Gathering of Earthstewards Network took place on July 25^th – July 26^th, 2005; the Earthstewrads network (an old American NGO dedicated to creating peaceful change in the world). During the gathering there was several workshops in nonviolence and essential peace making.

Empowerment training July 25^th – 28^th, 2005: Parallel to Essential Peace Making an Empowerment training was organized by the Hope Flowers School. Empowerment is a concept to help people to create positive change in their lives and to live their lives as they want it to be. The first step starts by recognizing that “thoughts creates reality”, participants get to identify their believes, setbacks and learn to create a vision and to move towards achieving their vision.

Joint Interfaith Conferences with the IEA:  during the year 2005, a number of interfaith seminars took place. we hosted two successful conferences with the Interfaith Encounter Association (IEA).  The first on February 3^rd and 4^th involved fifteen Palestinians and fifteen Israelis.  Participants attended group discussions and activities created to showcase both the participants shared humanity and the peaceful nature of all three major monotheistic religions. In June, the second conference brought Israeli Jews and Palestinian Muslims and Christians together to learn about their respective views about the creation of the universe.  The goal of the conference was to promote mutual understanding and respect among people of different religions.

Art of Hosting a Meaningful Conversation, August 25^th, 2005: The Hope Flowers School has hosted an afternoon meeting between Palestinians and Israelis about creating a meaningful conversation. The afternoon came as follow up for the Center for Individual Recovery and Reconciliation (CIRR) meeting in April 2005. CIRR is a new initiative that brings several people from different countries that care about the conflict in Palestine And Israel, Palestinian and Israelis together and encourage Palestinian and Israelis to start basic contact and cooperation among themselves. Several Palestinian and Israelis have attended the meeting and several cooperation ideas were born.

War Trauma Counseling Program:

“Every Act of Violence is a result of Unhealed Wound”. Based on this believe, the Hope Flowers School is going to organize a War Trauma treatment program. the program will be divided into two parts; Training of trainers through which 15 Palestinian psychologists and social workers will follow a professional training on War Trauma treatment and will learn how to train school teachers. The other part of the program aims to train school teachers about the trauma, how to identify, deal and refer traumatized children. During the pilot program, 15 Palestinian trainers will be created and 20 teachers from 10 selected private and UNRWA schools will be trained. The first seminar on training of trainers has already taken place in March 2005.  Indeed the pilot program ends with success the program will be extended for three years and the program will be implemented in 200 schools in the West Bank. 

On behalf of the Hope Flowers School, teachers, students and local community we would like to express our gratitude and regards for the War Trauma Foundation in the Netherlands for supporting the War Trauma Treatment Program.

Training on Burn out Counseling September 2005

The reason for this program is in the fact that the difficult situation most Palestinians have to live in, does not only affect their daily lives, but also their minds and souls. Their minds get affected with beliefs about victimization, while their souls get lost in despair. As consequence to this situation many people are not doing their jobs due to lack of motivation. These people are Burned-out. School teachers are one group that is mostly suffering of by Burn out. The Hope Flowers School has organized training on Burn Out counseling for school counselors. The counselors will transfer these new skills in their schools and will help teachers in their schools. The program helped in creating safe groups, where individuals can unburden themselves and receive love and respect. They learned also some techniques to upgrade their counseling skills.

25 participants have participated in the training. A follow up training will be organized in April.

On behalf of the Hope Flowers School, teachers, students and local community we would like to express our gratitude and regards for the Peace Shalom Salaam Trust from UK for supporting the Burn Out counseling Program.

Integrating Students with Disabilities at the Hope Flowers School

Consistent with its philosophy to create social justice in the Palestinian philosophy, the Hope Flowers School started in 2004 to integrate students with disabilities in the hope flowers school.  The program will continue for 2005 too. The Hope Flowers School has broadcasted TV spot shots on local TV stations to create awareness about the necessity of integrating people with disability in the society. In 2005 the Hope Flowers School is going to deal with the issue of learning disabilities. Special thanks for Foundation of Children’s Stamps from the Netherlands for supporting this important program.

Achieved Projects:

One of our achievements in 2005 was completing the renovation work at the Hope Flowers School. With a grant of $23,500 from RAFEED which is a USAID project, we managed to continue renovating the eastern retaining wall of the playground, finding a counseling room, renovating 7 classrooms, renovating the electricity and sanitary networks. It is worth mentioning here that we have been raising funds to renovate the school’s building and facilities since two years. Since then, we managed to raise a few grants from the British Consulate and from the USAID and from our supporting friends in the USA and in Europe.

 How you can help The Hope Flowers School