Balata refugee camp in nablus & project Hope
saleh on November 25th, 2005
School children in the Balata Refuge camp, the largest refugee camp in the West Bank by population. It has three schools run by the United Nation’s agency UNRWA.
Whilst in Nablus i met with Abdul Hakim from Project Hope, a non-profit volunteer organization based in nablus. Project hope has led a pioneering effort to bring international volunteers to Nablus to teach english and art and vocational skills to young people living in the refugee camps.
Their aim is to work with children who are denied access to basic services by providing educational and recreational activities, medical and humanitarian relief and practical training that can empower them with hope and skills for the future.
What was inspiring was the grassroots nature of their work and how much they were doing with so little funding. All of project hope’s international volunteers I spoke too taught at the refugee camp schools. It was clear that their was a very high level of satisfaction that they recieved from their work with some of them staying on for as long as a year or vowing to return.
Nablus is a city devoid of an international precense, Project Hopes volunteers are some of the only internationals witnessing the brutality of the Occupation in Nablus.
They’re always on the lookout for more volunteers and also for funding oppurtunites, for more info please see
