Hope Flowers Centre for
Educational and Community Development
 PAGE SUMMARY This page covers the wider community work done at the Hope Flowers School. This includes four departments, dealing with professional development, youth, religion and psychological support. Each department and how it works is described. Though 'extra-mural', the Centre's work is central to the school's ethos and mission.  |
The Hope Flowers School is more than a school. The purpose of the Hope Flowers Centre for Educational and Community Development is to disseminate ideas and methods developed at the school into the wider community. Twelve people are involved as trainers and administrators in its training department. The centre is licensed and recognised by the Palestinian Ministry of Higher Education.
The aims of the Centre are to:
- provide skills to resolve conflicts constructively;
- inform on and implement international human rights standards;
- promote gender and racial equality, and...
- encourage the appreciation of cultural diversity.
The school has its own guest house and conference centre for the purpose of welcoming visitors from other parts of Palestine and other countries. It's valuable not only to welcome you to see the school and Bethlehem, but also for local Palestinians to meet and talk with you! We are a very hospitable people.
Four community-building services
The centre provides the following four services:
- Centre for Professional Development (CPD)
- Centre for Youth Development (CYD)
- Centre for Spirituality and Interfaith Studies (CSIS)
- Centre for Psychological Support (CPS).
Centre for Professional Development
The centre provides the following:
- computer training;
- teacher training in peace and democracy education and in recognising and understanding war trauma and acquiring skills to deal with it;
- conflict resolution training for professionals such as engineers, nurses, teachers and medics;
- supplementary training for social workers in the field of psychological and emotional support;
- joint seminars with teachers from other schools in Palestine and twinned schools in Israel and Germany;
- and encouragement of democratic ideas in other Palestinian schools.
Education for democracy can be achieved only in a school where the learning process and the school apply democratic values to relationships between students, teachers and parents. HFS involves its students in decision-making by giving them the right to elect and form school committees, and by encouraging them to take responsibility for organising activities and trips.
Follow-up studies of behaviours and attitudes among graduates of democratic schools in other countries indicate that this type of education has a lasting impact on the internalisation of democratic values and responsible civic behaviour. If these values and ideas are taken out to the wider community this filters through to the wider population.
Centre for Psychological Support
Since the beginning of the second intifada in September 2000, violence between Palestinians and Israelis has increased dramatically. Our own area of Bethlehem (al Khader) has been particularly affected - it is surrounded on three sides by Israeli settlements and an Israeli settler highway, which are protected by an army outpost and four sniper towers. When there are clashes, the Israeli army shells and makes incursions into the area, makes arrests, creates roadblocks and demolishes homes.
Hope Flowers School initially became aware of the impact of violence on its students and their families during daily class work. Symptoms included educational under-achievement, crying for no reason, fear of the dark, extreme anxiety, bed-wetting, aggression, physical reactions, speaking or eating disorders, over-dependency on parents and hyperactivity. The school initiated a pilot programme working with children and their parents. The group grew to 50 families, and the school extended provision to the local area too.
The centre operates counselling and therapy sessions with social workers and psychologists for members of the local community. These sessions create a safe space in which participants can talk about their experiences to achieve greater understanding and empathy. This helps them face their fear and stress and rebuild their lives. It enables them to develop skills and strategies for coping non-violently with the difficult conditions under which they live.
The Hope Flowers Centre for Youth Development
By providing a sense of safety and structure, belonging and membership, self-worth, an ability to contribute, independence and control over one's life, the centre creates a strong sense of citizenship, responsibility to the local and global community, and an appreciation of positive social interaction.
A sense of citizenship aids youth in understanding the importance of individual participation in government. An appreciation of positive social interaction provides a catalyst for seeking peaceful relationships in the local and global community. Without successful development, youth will fail to understand how peace and democracy can have a positive impact in their lives.
Moral development is a critical task of youth development. Young people need to develop their personal values and a sense of accountability in relation to the larger society, and then to apply those values and beliefs in meaningful ways. The centre helps to shape those values and beliefs. In particular, the Hope Flowers philosophy promotes dialogue, tolerance and an awareness of human rights, for oneself and for all others.
By providing youth development, the Hope Flowers Community Outreach Centre addresses the following needs of young adolescents:
- Physical activity
- Competence and achievement
- Self-definition
- Creative expression
- Positive social interaction with peers and adults
- Structure and clear limits
- Meaningful participation.
Youth development, as an asset-building approach, has the following elements:
- Focusing on the positive
- Taking personal responsibility for making a difference
- Being proactive
- Mobilising the public as well as youth-oriented organisations in a community
- Viewing youth as resources
- A vision-building perspective
- Cooperation within the community
- Unleashing the caring potential of residents and organisations so that public resources can be focused on areas of greatest need.
Funding
The programmes of the centre are funded by several international foundations:
- War Trauma Foundation - Netherlands; ten people are working in this project either as trainers or coordinators. This foundation has funded the programme for three years.
- British Shalom Salaam Trust (BSST); this foundation supports special training of trainers in prevention of burn-out for schoolteachers. Twenty trainers from ten towns on the West Bank are following a training programme of one year. One trainer is working for the programme.
- The Network for Social Change, UK, has funded the Listen to My Voice programme for a second year. This provides psychological counselling for war-traumatised children. Two social workers and one psychologist are working for the programme.
- Kinderpostzegels of the Netherlands funds the integration of students with disabilities. The programme aims to encourage social integration of disabled people, funded for the third year by Kinderpostzegels.
The Hope Flowers Mission
By providing these services, the Educational and Community Development Centre helps to develop and support the strengths of all sectors of the community. The Outreach Centre also serves as a bridge between the community and the Hope Flowers School, which provides a forum for peace and democracy education.
The Hope Flowers School was founded to develop attitudes and skills that foster peaceful resolution of conflict. At the same time, the school seeks to cultivate positive values within Palestinian society and build relationships between Palestinian children and other cultures as a basis for creating understanding and peaceful relations among the peoples of the world.
Education for democracy can be achieved only in a school when the learning process and the school itself apply the values of democracy in relationships between students, teachers and parents. The school involves its students in decision-making by giving them the right to vote, elect and form school committees, and the responsibility to organise different activities and trips.
The school educates towards social justice by closing gaps within societies and between nations. It educates for peaceful resolution of conflicts between diverse groups within society and between peoples of the world. Principles such as these foster and nurture the development of autonomous individuals with a sense of commitment to society.
Hope Flowers School initially became aware of the impact of violence on its students and their families during daily class work and realised that many of the children had been severely traumatised. Their symptoms included crying for no reason, fear of the dark (Israelis often carry out incursions and demolitions in the middle of the night), extreme anxiety, physical reactions (eg. becoming stiff with fear at the sound of a jeep or bulldozer), speaking or eating disorders, over-dependency on parents and hyperactivity - one 8 year old child's hair turned white. There is also anger, which may then translate into violence - especially with older children.
UNICEF figures show that nine out of ten parents report psycho-social distress and changes in behavior among Palestinian children ranging from bed-wetting to increased aggression. UNICEF is greatly concerned about the emotional wellbeing of children. It reports that children are stressed because of violence, restrictions and poverty, and that there has been a profound decline in the quality of life for Palestinian children.
There is, currently, very little work done here in the field of psychological and emotional support, so the school initiated a pilot program working with both children and their parents. Within a very short space of time, the group grew to 50 families - thus demonstrating the need for this kind of work. The school included other people from the local area who were not attending the school, as it deemed this to be necessary.
As Palestinians from all age groups have been seriously affected by the violence, Hope Flowers School feels it is particularly important to widen participation to the whole community through its outreach program as it is aware that the cycle of trauma and the ensuing violence is a part of many people's lives here. Unless these issues are addressed and positively resolved, the current downward-spiralling cycle of violence is likely to continue and, therefore, carry on into future generations.
