KISATI GETS READY TO LAUNCH!
“Injustice anywhere, is a threat to justice everywhere.”
- Martin Luther King Jr.
“Every time you think it’s over something else bad happens.
It’s like a nightmare.”
- Rami Khader, Director of Diyar Academy for Children and Youth, Bethlehem
It is from this canvas Kisati has emerged. Kisati, “my story” in Arabic, is a workshop to help children in Bethlehem process their experiences during COVID-19 by sharing their personal stories.
MARK YOUR CALENDARS FOR NEXT TUESDAY, JUNE 16, TO JOIN THE LAUNCH OF OUR FUNDRAISING CAMPAIGN!
Kisati will be hosted by Diyar Academy for Children and Youth and coordinated by Rami Khader, who I worked with to create of Children of Bethlehem. Find details for Kisati on my website here. Kisati is in fact version three of a storytelling workshop for children organized by Diyar. Since witnessing the powerful impact of previous workshops, Rami has been dreaming about the opportunity to offer another. Now is the time!
During the six-month workshop the children will learn how to write and illustrate stories, culminating in their own, unique digitally published book.
‘Writing a book was a moment of change for me. I finished college last year and now am working professionally. I still share my book with others. It is something that has remained with me as a sign of joy.’
– Lara Kasbari, previous Diyar storytelling workshop participant
Wait, but, what about the Art Competition?
If you’re scratching your head and wondering, “Hey Katie, I thought you were helping launch an art competition for Palestinian Children?” you’re right, we were! However, as the situations in the West Bank and Gaza have evolved over the last month, so has the vision for how to best support Palestinian children at this time. Rami and I determined that by sticking to the local community, Bethlehem, where Rami lives and works and where I have the strongest connections, we could best meet the needs of the children and make the most impact.
Bethlehem’s Status: COVID-19, Occupation, and Annexation
Life in Bethlehem is more uncertain than ever. As Rami lamented last week, “Every time you think it’s over something else bad happens. It’s like a nightmare.” While COVID cases have dropped significantly due to an aggressive lockdown and quarantine of Bethlehem, brown outs and water shutoffs have now surged. Restricting such essentials services puts pressure on Palestinians, aiming to weaken and discourage them, so they will be more compliant with Israel’s impending annexation of 30% of the West Bank.
This annexation*, as Jewish Voice for Peace put it, would look like, “Brutal family upheaval, forced evictions, and an unprecedented level of state-sanctioned settler violence against Palestinians. Annexation means Israel’s long-standing apartheid system becomes officially formalized.” And, “Congress wants us to pay for it.”
This is a lot…Especially for children.
“Research has long shown that the key to healing from traumatic stress is the telling of your own story… it helps to “reconstruct what the trauma took away: security and safety, reconnecting with others and restoring a sense of hopefulness.”
– Psychology Today
The Power and Hope of “Our Stories”
The children are feeling the pain, trauma, stress as much as anyone, though many may not be able to name or understand it as such. They’re sick of isolation, they miss their friends and not going to their school buildings, and are feeling confinement even more acutely than under occupation. Each will respond to their own emotions and experiences in any number of ways. How, depends on the opportunities available—the platforms provided.
Kisati will provide them the opportunity to communicate their stories from life under quarantine and how they feel about their world in the midst of COVID-19. Kisati will help them interpret, express, and understand their experiences, which will have a positive ripple effect upon the whole community through the sharing of the stories and the transformational healing they will bring. This is essential, because if we don’t transform our pain, we transmit our pain.
“Art is restoration: the idea is to repair the damages that are inflicted in life, to make something that is fragmented – which is what fear and anxiety do to a person – into something whole.”
– Louise Bourgeois
We’ve Got The Power!
We have the power to empower. Will you use yours to help children in Bethlehem positively transform their difficult experiences under quarantine, occupation, and impending annexation?
Mark your calendars for NEXT TUESDAY, JUNE 16, to help us kick-start our fundraiser for the $6,600 to make Kisati possible!
Remember, all donations are tax-deductible! :D
With much joy and great hope,
Katie
*Learn more about the annexation and take action: Tell Congress to stop the Israeli annexation. We cannot keep funding violence in our country or others’!
