First women’s meeting at Dar Assadaqa

This morning Dar Assadaqa welcomed some of the women from Abu Dis and its surroundings for the first women’s English class. After introductions, it was interesting to hear about each other’s lives and involvement in the community, as well as to learn something about how Palestinian families celebrate ‘Eid (next week) - and what to cook for it!

WELCOME BACK TO DAR ASSADAQA

Today was the first day for the new Dar Assadaqa programme in its new home, which welcomed around 15 kids. In the morning Matt and Wa’ad got to know the younger kids by playing games and talking about their families. After the break the kids played football in the back yard but the game ended when the football was kicked over the fence! Instead Ehab led a gardening session to make the back yard more friendly and to plant some trees, with the small lizards being particularly exciting.

In the meantime, Mary and Mohammed held the first art session and enjoyed the kids’ impressive creativity. The activities included drawing images out of squares, circles, and numbers, and ended with an expressive art-jam that saw landscapes, portraits, and Palestinian flags being paraded around. The afternoon English club was a good chance to have a chat with the older kids and learn about each other’s lives, but also to find out where countries like England, Italy, and Norway are placed on the map!

The atmosphere in the Friendship House was very relaxed with lots of people dropping by to say hi. Hopefully this will be the first of many happy Saturdays at the new Dar Assadaqa!

FIRST SKYPE MEETING BETWEEN THE ABU DIS BOYS SCHOOL AND THE HAMPSTEAD SCHOOL

Children from Abu-Dis Boys School met with children from Hampstead School, Camden, for the first time today using Skype. Although the meeting was short, it was a great opportunity for the children to introduce themselves and meet their twinning partners from London and Palestine. As it was the first ever CADFA skype meeting there were a few technical problems, which will be fixed for next time. The kids had many questions and stories to ask and tell each other, but did not have enough time today, however they were excited and enthusiastic to speak more next time. The children in Dar Assadaqa left a video message for the kids in London full of good wishes for future meetings. Everyone at Dar Assadaqa is looking forward to building on this opportunity and to share more projects in the near future.

Saturday Fun

On Saturday we had a day of baking, drama and craft. The kids enjoyed designing their own bunting which we have now used to decorate Dar Assadaqa. The older kids made banners and learnt how to stencil letters.    In the afternoon we played drama games and ate the biscuits we had made earlier, we also celebrated Mousa's birthday and had a huge cake to go alongside! Yasmin has started drawing on the outside of Dar Assadaqa ready to paint a new design on it, we are looking forward to seeing the end result. We have also been collecting local art work from children, students and local women. The work is now being displaying in Dar Assadaqa. 

Billy enjoying making some bunting! 

Decorating Dar Assadaqa with dove birds! The kids produced some really good Palestinian flags which have now been hung up.

Having fun baking biscuits! 

We ended up with rather a lot of biscuits! And rather a lot of mess!

Playing drama games, the children have classes twice in a week in which we teach them games, and they work in small groups putting together small sketches.

Making banners. 

Dar Assadaqa Saturday 27/04/2013

It was our first fully planned Saturday since we had arrived in Palestine. Our first two Saturday’s had been spent with other organisations so we decided to plan ahead knowing that lots of energetic children would be attending. We decided to split the ages up into 3 groups so it wouldn’t be too chaotic and organise 3 activities which would then be rotated after an hour was spent with each group.

We organised a drop the egg challenge, English club and an art activity in which the children made animal masks. It was a great, messy day and we are looking to the next few weeks with these lovely children. We are hoping to hold a music day next Saturday where we can do some drumming and have a go at making instruments from bottles!

Drop the Egg Challenge: -

For this challenge we gave the children an egg each and five tokens. With the tokens they could buy a piece of material and the challenge was to wrap the egg so that it wouldn't break if you dropped it.  

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CRACK! Out  of 13 eggs, two didn’t break! 

Mask Making!

Lots of fun was had spending the morning making animal masks, we had lions, monkeys, tigers and rabbits! Despite the glue that seemed to get everywhere it was great to see the kids getting creative using different materials to design their own masks. All ages were able to join in and hopefully we can do some more another time. Here are a few photos:

It's great to have local volunteers helping out!

Some very colourful masks were made!

from CADFA volunteer April 2013

Dar Assadaqa Saturday 27/04/2013

It was our first fully planned Saturday since we had arrived in Palestine. Our first two Saturday’s had been spent with other organisations so we decided to plan ahead knowing that lots of energetic children attended. We decided to split the ages up into 3 groups so it wouldn’t be too chaotic and organise 3 activities which would then be rotated after an hour was spent with each.

We organised a drop the egg challenge, english exercises and an art activity in which the children made masks. It was a great, messy day and we are looking to the next few weeks with these lovely children. We are hoping to hold a music day next Saturday. 

from CADFA volunteer April 2013

Dar Assadaqa Saturday 27/04/2013

It was our first fully planned Saturday since we had arrived in Palestine. Our first two Saturday’s had been spent with other organisations so we decided to plan ahead knowing that lots of energetic children attended. We decided to split the ages up into 3 groups so it wouldn’t be too chaotic and organised 3 activities which would then be rotated after an hour was spent with each.

We organised a drop the egg challenge, English exercises and an art activity in which the children made masks. It was a great, messy day and we are looking to the next few weeks with these lovely children. We are hoping to hold a music day next Saturday.