Promoting Child Literacy in Palestine

We had the opportunity to visit two locations of Madaa Silwan Creative Center in Silwan, East Jerusalem. It was a hot summer day during Ramadan, so there weren’t a lot of activities during the day since in Ramadan life prospers after Iftar time and not before.

But while we were visiting one of the locations of the center with Sahar Abbasi, deputy director of Madaa, to see the library our tour was shortly interrupted when a group of girls in their school uniforms entered the center and ran to hug Sahar and Hanadi Abbasi, a project coordinator, with big smiles on their faces. “See how lucky we are? This is the love we’re always greeted with,” explained Sahar for us with a smile.

It was the girls last day of exams, and on their way home they just wanted to go by the center, express their happiness to their mentors and then continued on their way home.

Sahar continued, “That’s why we do what we do, for them, they are all that matters.” She informed us that the library project is more than just shelves with books, they have a music program at the library in Wadi Hilweh center, in addition to a variety of books on literature, history, and art, and it gives them a safe and quiet haven to gather and spend some time together lost between books and music.

That’s why it was important to expand this project to other locations like the small library at Madaa's building in Ain el-louzeh neighborhood. Abeer Wawi, coordinator, explained how excited the kids get with all the reading and writing activities they do. As scarce as the books are at the moment - they have to borrow some books from the main library in Wadi Hilweh - it doesn't stop the coordinators of the center from nourishing the kids with literature. Abeer explained how each kid has his\her own notebook where they write their notes, answer questions on the stories they read, and even draw and paint their favorite characters.

“The reading segment is our most enjoyable one for the children. Imagine how far we’ll go with a fully equipped library where we won’t need to keep borrowing books from other places but would suffice with our own,” stated Abeer as we were asking about the benefits of funding this project and how it would affect the kids lives.

You could easily see how proud the Madaa staff were of the children and the work being done for them, and by continuing to support such project more and more kids will be spending their time working on their creative writing and reading skills.