“If there is no change in education, nothing will change ever“

During this year’s Journey of Understanding, we spoke to one of our Palestinian participants to find out what motivated them to join the programme, how they continue to stay positive and hopeful, and how they plan to share what they’ve learnt with their community back home in Palestine:

“I’m currently working in the educational sector as an International Relations university lecturer. Working in education has always been a part of my dream to stay engaged, to be involved and make some kind of change in society. That’s why I consider myself as an activist in an indirect way. 

I definitely experience the Israel-Palestine conflict in my day-to-day life. For example, my journey to work should take 10 minutes, however, because of the checkpoints and settlements, it takes me over an hour. This is a struggle that I face every day. I have a little baby and I cannot risk our lives just by going the way that connects the settlements and Palestinians. It’s just so hard. But, at the same time, I still find hope out of all of this. 

That’s why I decided to get into education. I believe that education is the first way to make a change in the conflict. If there is no change in education, nothing will change ever. Education, in my opinion, matters the most.

I try to help students not only to memorise what they learn, but to think critically and always analyse things beyond what they seem or what they were taught in school. I believe young people need to expose themselves to different cultures, different materials and a different way of thinking. We do talk about the Israel Palestine conflict in the course, but I’m very careful when talking about this topic with them because it’s sensitive but it’s a must because it’s our daily lives. When talking about the conflict in either an indirect, or sometimes a direct way, I can see a change in them. They’re very flexible and they didn’t learn much about it at school. 

When I was at school, I always dreamt of being part of the education system. I feel like a changing point for me was to see myself in a more analytical way, to analyse myself. Through self analysis I can also analyse where I’m living because I’m part of where I’m living.

I also studied abroad. I went to the United States and the UK where I did my Masters. This was funded by a scholarship. I would like to do a PhD in the future and explore the connection between political economics and conflict situations. 

I have been on dialogue programmes before. I volunteer with Solutions Not Sides (SNS). I love SNS, they’ve made a big change. They target British students and show how the conflict not only affects Palestinians and Israelis, but also affects Jewish and Muslim societies from all over the world. For example, when we go to muslim and jewish schools in the UK, we often see biases. This is fine but at the same time we need to focus on the solutions. You need to focus on the solution, on the hope, on the positive side and this is where the change begins. 

Sometimes when you go to your emotional side you will sometimes lose hope because you’re just looking, I believe, at the surface of the conflict. If you just look at the surface you may lose hope because you see people dying everyday.

If you take part in dialogue programmes like the Journey of Understanding you will feel massive change, you will start to see hope because you will see how many common things we share and that we’re just humans and we share so much with each other and we don’t realise this until we meet. 

The sessions that have really stood up for me during this Journey of Understanding are the deep democracy seminars. Personal growth is so important. At home we never get that chance to express ourselves because we don’t have freedom of speech. Deep democracy is about how to start looking at and addressing internal conflict and then moving that gradually to the conflict you’re living in. It’s based on the idea that you’re not going to make a change in society until you make it in yourself. You start with yourself and then you go to the society and the conflict you’re living in. 

Through this process I learnt that I was able to be patient and be an active listener. It also taught me to analyse my identity in a way that I’d never really thought about. This programme made me view identity from a deeper perspective. It made me realise that, when you peel away the outer layers, we’re really just humans. Identity can be a bit superficial, beyond what’s on the outside you learn that people are struggling with similar issues. 

We watched a video during one of the JoU sessions that really touched my heart. It was about Israelis and Palestinians donating blood to each other. It was a way of showing that we all have the same blood. Just to do that is something different, it touched my heart. 

I plan to use what I learnt when I return home to help my students and also with my own family. Part of my activism is to talk about these things. It’s very difficult of course but we also need to talk about them. I want to make a change by doing similar exercises with my students. Exploring what deep democracy is, getting them to question identities. 

I teach over 300 students and I want to guide them to think outside the box. I want this experience as an individual to make an impact on my society. 

I think this programme has made a big change on me. I’ve been to quite a few dialogue programmes but this one specifically has been very good as it has taken us on a gradual journey to where we are right now as a group. It’s been brilliant and has really helped me to understand what’s going on. I’m so grateful.”