The National, December 26, 2009
“Finish green!” a six-year-old Palestinian girl exclaims in English, dropping a pastel crayon onto the table and raising her open hands into the air.
She reaches for blue and turns back to the paper before her. Volunteer Michael Cooper, 30, crouches next to her. Using his fingers, he teaches the girl how to blend one color into the next. Her small hand follows his.
When Cooper stands, he’s got broad smudges of green and blue on his face. “It’s all part of the job,” he comments.
But it’s not a job at all. Cooper is one of 12 volunteers who will spend the next week donating their time, energy, and enthusiasm to 70 Palestinian kids who attend the Hermann Gmeiner School in Bethlehem. About half of the children are part of SOS Palestine, a program that provides a home and education to youth from troubled backgrounds.
Some of the children are orphans. Some have suffered abandonment, abuse, or severe neglect. One child, cheerfully adding streaks of yellow to white paper, is the son of a drug addicted father and an impoverished mother. One girl was orphaned by her father and ignored by her mentally handicapped mother; authorities found the child wandering in the street, barefoot and alone, when she was a toddler.
“They need a lot, they are deprived,” remarks Grace Matar, assistant principal.
The week-long initiative was organized by START, a UAE-based NGO that brings art education to children facing a variety of difficulties, from learning disorders to poverty, throughout the Middle East. Most of the volunteers, like Cooper, who heads the art department at Dubai’s Repton School, are ex-pats based in the Emirates; three have traveled from London and one from Beirut to join the group. And all have footed the travel expenses on their own.
“This is their gift to the program and the kids,” START director Sonia Brewin comments. “They gave up Christmas with their families to come volunteer.”
START has also taken volunteer groups to Jordan and refugee camps in Lebanon. “The idea is to collect creative people and encourage them to donate their time,” Brewin says.
Creating art gives children a sense of accomplishment, Brewin says. “With art, there is no right and wrong. If you have a good teacher, they can see something brilliant in everything.” And when the kids see their art displayed on the classroom walls, they feel proud.
Sven Muller, 40, an interior designer who lives in Dubai and has been volunteering with START for two years, adds, “I deeply believe in the power of creativity and arts. It can lead you in life.”
Despite Bethlehem’s history with the Arab-Israeli conflict—the city saw fierce fighting between Israeli soldiers and Palestinian militants in 2002—both Muller and Brewin agree that the trip is free of politics.
“We’re a bunch of hippie artists, that’s the bottom line,” Brewin says. “Our program is set up for children in need.” Budget allowing, START will lend a hand anywhere in the Middle East.
But for one volunteer, the location is important.
Although Jocelyn Chami, 50, was born and raised in Beirut, both of her grandfathers left Palestine in 1948 when the state of Israel was established. When Chami heard about the program in Bethlehem, she knew immediately that she wanted to participate.
Chami, a Dubai-based yoga instructor who finds a creative outlet in pottery, models the cat stretch pose for a group of children. On red and blue mats, their shoes tossed to the side, the kids follow along. They giggle and meow and as they arch their backs.
Speaking Arabic to the kids, Chami guides them into the next posture. Together, the group reaches skyward and then swoops down towards the floor. They finish by bringing their hands together in front of their chests. “Namaste,” the children repeat after Chami.
“Yoga is a great thing to give them. It makes them physically strong and helps on a mental level,” Chami says, explaining that the exercises help people to concentrate better. “And it helps a spiritual level—they connect to their hearts and souls,” she adds.
Chami is deeply moved by the experience of helping Palestinian children.
While both Muller and Cooper call volunteering a “privilege,” Ibrahim Burmat, an art teacher at Hermann Gmeiner who will spend his Christmas holiday alongside the START group, says it is also a responsibility.
Why? As a graduate of the SOS program, Burmat, 23, knows firsthand the profound impact organizations like START make.
“I’ve been through the system and it was very successful for me,” Burmat, who holds a bachelor’s degree in fine arts and hopes to go on for a master’s, remarks. “When you grow up, you realize how much it gave you… I feel a responsibility to give back and make it even better.”
Nearby, Cooper, his face still smudged with color, tapes the children’s completed drawings to the wall. “I’m putting up the achievements of the day,” he says.
He shows two girls, one with a long red ponytail and the other with curly dark hair, the stencils they’ll use tomorrow for screen printing. Sensing their interest, Cooper gives an impromptu lesson, pouring canary-yellow ink into a frame and then revealing the pattern on the paper below. Burmat translates Cooper’s directions and the girls take turns trying it on their own.
Of the children’s enthusiastic response, Muller remarks, “Their excitement is the payment for us. It’s pure energy.”