Sabeel went to Terra Santa School on Thursday evening, the 27th of February 2014, looking forward to the first session with the students. We had a workshop of “meaning of community” ready for them, and two stations set up, one for a recycling program and another for basketball where we will be using the game for peace building. –both recycle and basketball are tools to better skills of communication and leadership.
Twenty students from this all-boys’ school eagerly joined us to know what change they will be making by working with us.
We sat in a circle, and came together to get acquainted. Then we had them sit in smaller circles to discuss their community, and come up with one word that describes their community.
The exercise was helpful and fruitful and made the young boys think critically. We were pleased with their responses: One of the groups said “security and belonging, “others said “cooperation,” While another group said “a way of living.” The goal of the session was to make the students think about the positive as well as the negative in their own community within Jerusalem.
They shared their ideas and thoughts with their classmates and some shared their ideas with us, we moved on to our next part of the session which was a PowerPoint presentation on recycling, the two young women responsible were prepared in order to show its importance to maintain our environment and how recycling also can be an educational tool.
Afterwards, the entire group was divided into smaller groups, and each group went to different stations. One group went with two of our Sabeel volunteers to do an activity on recycling, and the other group went out to the court to play basketball (a tool for bridge building) with our three volunteer coaches.
Each group had 30 minutes, and then they switched stations. The students enjoyed the afternoon and asked if we were going to have other activities for them. We eagerly answered yes!
We felt that we achieved something positive in the long run. They were very much engaged with the activities and with us personally.
