Hope Flowers Newsletter

Summer 2008

 The hard work and incredible efforts of our faculty and staff are still going on. A number of projects took place during the last school year and are still going on through the summer school which makes our summer active and complementary with the success and progress we managed to achieve throughout the school year. With your continued support and faith in us we have seen great progress at the Hope Flowers School and have been able to continue the success of our activities and programs.  

Educational Progress

 The Academic school year 2007/2008: The new school year began with an increase in our enrollments. The number of students reached 300 from kindergarten to seventh grade. Most of the students the last school year came from the village of El Khader and the nearby areas.

Scholarships program: As part of the Hope Flowers mission to protect the children, great efforts have been made to keep the children enrolled at the school, not letting them leave their education due to financial hardships.  During the last school year 2007/2008, the school has increased the number of scholarships offered to needy students. With a grant received from USAID, the number of scholarships has been increased to 90 scholarships. This grant was implemented through a support program that USAID is giving to private schools in the West Bank to support the education of the students who are in need of assistance.

Therefore, taking into consideration the educational progress the school has been achieving and the success in our outreach programs within the community, in evaluating our work, we consider the increase in enrollments to be a good result of maintaining our efforts.

War Trauma counseling: as you may already know, this program is a three year project which started in 2005. The program is divided into two parts. Part One is the Training of Trainers, in which Palestinian psychologists and school workers receive professional training on war trauma treatment and learn how to train school teachers. The second ongoing part of the program aims at teaching school teachers about trauma and how to identify and deal with traumatized children. During the last six months, 18 schools were included in the war trauma counseling program. The training included school directors, teachers, and social workers.

Learning Disabilities treatment; As you may already know, the learning disabilities treatment program is a five year program, which started in 2005. The purpose of this program is to train the teachers of the Hope Flowers School and teachers from other schools to effectively deal with learning disabilities among the students. The current ongoing course is a nine months course in which 30 teachers attend the courses presented by a lecturer who  specializes in learning disabilities treatment. This training is very supportive for educating students who face learning disabilities. It is important that all the children at the Hope Flowers School receive a quality education, and this learning disabilities program is one more feature in our academic program that helps to ensure that aim.

 Women Empowerment Program; The Women Empowerment Program has been running for the last few years. The Hope Flowers School is proud to be able to offer this vital resource to women in the local community. New courses have been added to this program. The program provides three types of training which aim to empower women economically, psychologically, and to provide them with knowledge and education. For the economic empowerment, computer and handicraft courses are being provided for women to assist them in gaining the knowledge to prepare and qualify them for jobs that will earn income. For psychological empowerment, psychological support courses are being given by a social worker, in addition to helping them with knowledge and education on other topics of interest. Each Thursday a guest speaker meets with the women to talk about a subject in which they are interested in. A series of weekly trainings has been taking place since January 2008. Thirty women participate in each course.  

Summer Activities

Student Exchanges

The Artsbridge summer camp in Boston, Massachusetts is co-organized by Hope Flowers School and the Artsbridge organization in the US. Three students from Hope Flowers will be taking part in this summer camp from July 19-August 10. Various art activities will be taught at this camp: photography, video, and drawing in addition to drama.

 This summer camp will be followed by a community students summer camp in the UK, co-organized by Hope Flowers and Peace Insight. It will take place from July 19 till August 1^st. The idea of this camp is to promote communication and build a bridge of peace between Israeli and Palestinian students. Seven students from Hope flowers will be participating this year to meet with Israeli students. 

Celebrating Our Silver Jubilee

In 2009, Hope Flowers School will be celebrating 25 years of work. This occasion deserves our appreciation for the many people who have worked long and hard to achieve so much at Hope Flowers. We are planning an international celebration on March 5th; the ninth anniversary of Hussein Issa's death, our school's founder.  In this celebration we will be honoring him, the school's work, and our supporters and friends who make our work possible.

Please know that your presence at this celebration is important and we will be honored to have you visit.

 Financial challenges at Hope Flowers;

 As previously mentioned in our past newsletters, the school has been encountering financial hardships for the last few years.  Due to the general economic deterioration in our area, many families lost their income resources; as a result, a great number of our students stopped paying the tuitions which caused many financial difficulties since then. We have been depending more than ever upon donations from international friends and supporters to meet our basic needs and priorities. We are required to pay a monthly amount of $8,000 to cover the staff salaries and the running costs.

 Supporting the school's operating budget, or one of our ongoing programs, or sponsoring the education of a needy child will definitely be helpful and of great support for our work. Please don't hesitate to contact us if you need any further information. At the meantime, many thanks for your support.

We greatly appreciate your support – moral encouragement, rooting for us in your own country, financial support and helping us find new funding, educational and institutional contacts. We encourage you, if you are able, to make what might be the trip of a lifetime to Bethlehem, or to urge others to do so, and we welcome guests to our guest accommodation at the school. We will be glad to provide you with any information you may need about our work and activities – check our website to see if it’s there first.

With best wishes to you from us, the coordinators, staff and children

at the Hope Flowers School in Bethlehem, Palestine.

Bank Details

You can send donations to one of the following addresses, or make a credit card donation through PayPal on our website. Your support does make a difference.

NB. Please notify us when wiring donations so that we can track them with our bank.