Bethlehem | West Bank, Palestine

<BODY> <P><A HREF="hfs.html" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Visit the Hope Flowers School">Hope Flowers School</A></P> <P><A HREF="traumarecovery.html" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Trauma-recovery programme for children and their families">Listen to my voice</A></P> <P>Psychological support program<BR>for children & their families</P> <P><A HREF="ibrahimissa.html" TARGET="_top" TITLE="About Ibrahim Issa">About Ibrahim Issa</A></P> <H2 ALIGN="center">Bethlehem</H2> <H4>West Bank, Palestine<H4> <P CLASS="bigger"><I>We have some involement with Bethlehem. This started with the <A HREF="hfs.html" TARGET="_top">Hope Flowers School</A> and the PeaceTrees project. </I></P> <P>O Little Town of Bethlehem...</P> <P>At Christmas, this song pervades the airwaves. It evokes security, family feeling and hope. God is with us and all is well. Sad to say, this isn't reflected in the situation on the ground in Bethlehem today. The town is something of a ghetto, throttled by concrete walls and roadblocks with armed soldiers. Nevertheless, its inhabitants carry on admirably, keeping their lives going under circumstances we in the West would find unacceptable.</P> <P>In 1996, under the Oslo Accords, it was allotted 'Area A' status - Palestinian, under Palestinian control. Bethlehem includes the towns of Beit Jala and Beit Sahour, with new Israeli settlements such as Gilo nibbling away at its edges. Its economy is depressed.</P> <P>Bethlehem is home to a large Palestinian Christian community. It has an estimated 184,000 inhabitants, 41% of whom are Christian, and 59% are Muslim. Fifty years ago the majority was Christian - this has declined as Christians have left for other countries (aided by churches and connections abroad) and as Muslim refugees have increased (as a result of evictions and house demolitions). Since the low-point of the five-week siege of the Church of the Nativity in May 2002, Bethlehem has been road-blocked and increasingly surrounded by the separation wall.</P> <H6>Hope Flowers School</H6> <P>It was <I>children</I> who drew us into a growing involvement with Bethlehem. We started by supporting the <A HREF="hfs.html" TARGET="_top">Hope Flowers School</A>, a multifaith, peace-and-democracy oriented school in al Khadr, a Bethlehem suburb, founded in 1984. The school's approach to providing a safe, supportive environment for its pupils is impressive. In 2004 we raised funds to support the school's Psychological Support Program, in which children and their families were given special help dealing with the results of trauma and disruption.</P> <P>The Hope Flowers School tackles the root source of violence and terrorism: the emotional damage to children which, when they grow up, becomes resentment, frustration, fatalism, despair and violence. Not one graduate of the school has entered into violence or suicide bombing. Details at <A HREF="http://www.hopeflowersschool.org/"><B>www.hopeflowersschool.org</B></A></P> <P>Reconciliation</P> <P>Jerusalem Peacemakers supports peace and reconciliation on both sides in the Holy Land conflict and for all involved people. Our support for Bethlehem could be seen as support for the Palestinians. For us, it's a contribution to peace, benefiting both sides.</P> <H6>PeaceTrees</H6> <P>The first PeaceTrees project in Bethlehem took place in summer 2005, during which a group of European volunteers, largely connected with the <A HREF="http://www.earthstewards.org/" TARGET="new">EarthStewards</A>, and local young people, joined together to plant trees near the Hope Flowers School and in the central reservation of a main road in al Khadr. The value of this was not only to plant trees for future benefit, but also to spark a participatory process of longterm thinking and restoration work in Bethlehem. Beset as they have been by military incursions, disruptions and destruction, Palestinians have resorted to a day-to-day approach to life which tends to discount actions with longterm benefits. So one aim was to change a "What's the use?" attitude into a "This is good, let's do some more" approach. There will be more PeaceTrees work projecs in Bethlehem in future years.</P>  <script type="text/javascript" language="javascript1.2"> </script><script type="text/javascript"> </script><noscript><img height="1" width="1" alt="" src="http://nht-2.extreme-dm.com/n2.g?login=jpeace&pid=jpbeth&j=n&jv=n"/> </noscript>  </BODY>