KISATI FUNDRAISING CAMPAIGN LAUNCHES!
“Kisati”
“Children of Bethlehem”
“Through The Checkpoint”
قصتي
KISATI
”My Story”
SHARING STORIES, TRANSFORMING LIVES
Kisati, the next phase of Through The Checkpoint, means “my story” in Arabic and is a 6-month storytelling and illustration workshop to help children in Bethlehem process their experiences and emotions from COVID-19 quarantine and lockdown. Kisati is being hosted by Diyar Academy for Children and Youth in Bethlehem, in partnership with Life Illuminated, and in cooperation with the Creative Visions Foundation.
SHARING STORIES, TRANSFORMING LIVES
Our stories are powerful. They shape our lives. They are the events that happen to us and the narratives and interpretations we create from those events. And the children in Bethlehem have experienced some intense ones.
Like many children around the world, they are feeling the pain, stress, and trauma of the pandemic, though they may not be able to name or understand it as such. They are sick of isolation, they miss their friends and not going to their school buildings, they are experiencing a confinement even more restrictive than the military occupation they already live under, and they are also feeling the anxieties of the impending annexation of 40% of the West Bank by Israel, slated to begin in July.
"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
Each child will respond to their life events in different ways—crafting their own stories from them. How, they do this depends on the opportunities available. In light of this, we are launching Kisati.
An outlet like Kisati is essential, because if we don’t transform our pain, we transmit our pain.
JOIN US!
TODAY, JUNE 16TH, we kick-start our fundraising campaign! We have TWO WEEKS to raise the $6,600 necessary to LAUNCH the workshop in July. More great news, all donations are tax-deductible! NOTE: please indicate “Kisati” in your note for the Donor Scroll.
JOIN US in positively transforming the lives of children in Bethlehem through the power of storytelling!