Minna talks about her motivation for participating in ‘Letters from Palestine’, a joint Encompass and Solutions Not Sides programme which connects high school students in Palestine with students in the UK via a letter exchange, as well as what she learnt during the process:

“My name is Minna, I am 15 years old, from Balata Refugee Camp, Palestine. I decided to take part in Letters from Palestine to improve my English and be able to share my stories and learn how talk about my identity as a Palestinian refugee.

The project is definitely very important because besides having very interesting identity activities, I also got the chance to write a letter to a British Pen-pal. The letter was a nice way for me to express my feelings and talk more about my life and the Palestinian lives from a Palestinian refugee’s perspective living under the Israeli occupation.

I learned many things from this project.  One of them is that I have improved my English in terms of writing and speaking and fore sure still excited for more meetings in order to learn more.  I faced a challenge during the project, which was writing a letter to an unknown person from the UK about our lives, how we live and the difficulties we face inside Palestine, but with the help of Mrs. Karen, Mr. Mohammed, and Mr. Adel I was able overcome that.

I enjoyed everything about this project. I made new friends and this project brought me together with the friends I knew before the project, but we weren’t as friends as we are now. I am already excited for the coming meetings and so excited to receive a letter from my British Pen-pal. 

Finally, I would like to thank you all for your great efforts. I can’t wait to meet again in other meetings and I would love to participate in other projects.“