2010 monitoring visit
Chair of directors, Georgina Simpson, with her children Francesca (13) and Tristan (11) visited the Palestinian Territories in April. They met with our current project partners and investigated other potential partners.
The Early Childhood Resource Centre (ECRC) has pioneered the development of pre-school learning in the Palestinian Territories. Thanks to its inspirational work thousands of children have benefitted from modern teaching methods, where the children are encouraged to learn through play, music and art. We visited the final session in Nablus of a training programme for heads of pre-schools in expressive arts. These women described how much they had benefitted from the techniques they had learnt on the course and how they were sharing these with the parents of their pupils.
At the Vocational Training Centre in Jericho, we were impressed by how much can be achieved by dedicated staff with a relatively small resource. On average 80% of the graduates of the centre find jobs when they leave – a fantastic result in a region of very high unemployment. Introducing girls was a very brave move on behalf of the principal of the Centre and we are pleased that it has been such a huge success.
The Dar el Tifl orphanage, set up by one individual in the wake of the Deir Yassin massacre in 1948, is a very impressive girls’ school in Jerusalem. Using our own funds, and those kindly donated by the Abraaj Group of companies, we supported ten girls in 2009/10. We tried to focus on those who may otherwise have had to leave the school due to lack of funding. We found the girls absolutely charming, engaging and engaged and were really happy to spend some time with them.
Tamara was awarded a DSMT scholarship to cover her university fees. We were thrilled to meet her – she is a charming young lady, determined to give back to the community and so does a lot of volunteering.