We had a game-changing experience as we hosted brilliant young girls from Gaza in Jenin. A string of short plays in English was performed by the three winning groups of the playwriting competition organised by The Hands Up Project. The groups of children are from UNRWA schools in Gaza and spent a few days in the West Bank.
During the day, we welcomed our guests and headed to Jenin Governorate. We had a very stimulating discussion on freedom, gender equality, women empowerment and art with our governor and participants from Gaza. For us, it is a very exciting experience to see that these students faced many difficulties but still are actively involved in promoting freedom and justice, meanwhile a humanitarian crisis is taking place in Gaza.
During the evening, we had the performance of “Inner thoughts, Live your Life & Window on to the Outside”. Tariq Alawneh, Director of Education Office in Jenin; Mustafa Sheta, our director at TFT and Nick Bilbrough, founder and coordinator at Hands Up Project gave their warm welcoming to the young promising actresses from Gaza.
We found the performances wonderful since they were depicting the situation in Gaza in a very creative way. They were extremely interactive and engaged with the audience, thus the children in Jenin enjoyed the plays very much. We believe that these young girls leaving Gaza for the first time and performing a great show in English inspired both our children audience, as well as the community in Jenin, also ourselves, The Freedom Theatre and we appreciate their work wholeheartedly.
