Educare a Gaza

Abstract

In 2008, R.E.C. (Remedial Education Centre, Gaza, Palestine) was carrying out the project “Promotion of the democratic process and active participation among young population in the Gaza Strip”, approved by the Europe Initiative for democracy and Human Rights, and financed by the European Union. The project included a research activity, “Educational models and concept of childhood in the Gaza Strip”. The research is an idea coming from the long-term collaboration, started in 2002, between EducAid (Italian Ngo, Rimini, Italy) and R.E.C. in the educational work with the vulnerable children in the Gaza Strip.Teachers, educators and parents play a fundamental role in the education of children and adolescents; therefore families, associations and schools should be places where children become aware of their rights as human beings, in order to become, one day, active citizens of a society that themselves can improve. It’s of fundamental importance the policy that institutions carry out (supporting families, schools and associations), because it guarantees a functional education system. We interfaced with the different faces of formal and informal education, and it was impossible not to have the sensation of being inside a big prison, not too big, if we think its size compared to one and a half million inhabitants, between a closed tall and gray wall, a sea hardly accessible due to embargo, and Erez, the check point of transit for Israel. No gas, no fuel, no electricity, yet children continue to go to school, the roads are crowded by pedestrians who are waiting for a taxi for hours under the sun, wondering if they can go to work. The potential of education and schooling represent non-violent weapons to defend peace, promote change, make children aware of their rights, begin to live their citizenship at school, at home, in the associations. Through the testimonies we realized how much these valuable potentials are in danger in the Gaza Strip, as indeed in many other places in the world where people are slaves to someone or something, and lose confidence, tighten up their minds, are afraid to change, to fight for transforming what the political, social, local and international system make difficult and overwhelming.