Letters from Palestine

‘Letters from Palestine’ is a joint Encompass project with Solutions Not Sides (SNS) which connects high school students in Palestine with students in the UK. The idea for the ‘Letters from Palestine’ programme came from our alumni and is entirely run by them. To support participants to share their stories, Encompass alumni have been working with high school students in Palestine to write letters about themselves, their lives and their communities. These letters are then mailed to students in the UK through SNS. The programme has also taken participants to Nablus to explore Palestinian culture. This included a trip to Nablus’ national park, as well as Palestinian music lessons. This excursion was designed to connect participants with their land and their roots and give them the confidence to speak in order to be heard, and listen to understand. The goal of the Letters from Palestine programme is to allow the participants to share their Palestine, not just what’s available in the news, empowering young people to get their voices heard and represent their identities and communities.

“By doing this project, the participants are empowered to share the Palestine they live in, and the situations they experience first hand, without interpretation or slant from news agencies or government representatives. We not only hope to empower our youth to speak for themselves, but also to change the negative stereotypes being promoted about Palestinians.” – Mohammad A, Encompass alumni and Letters from Palestine organiser.

While participants of the project are currently too young to take part in the Journey of Understanding (JoU), we think it is important to start making connections at this age and to provide as much of a positive influence as possible to teenagers who may not have many other outlets for their passions and their energies. We hope that many of these youngsters may take part in JoU in the future and themselves become game-changing alumni like the programmes’ organisers, Mohammed and Adel. 

Participants share why they took part in ‘Letters from Palestine’, as what they learnt from the programme, below: 

“The program helped me a lot with in my life especially with my speaking and writing skills. It also helped me with my public-speaking skills and many other things. For example, one of my problems was speaking with others, especially with girls. Now I feel that I am overcoming this issue and feeling more confident about myself and my skills. In addition to that, I had lots of fun. I usually don’t get as much fun as that in my village. I would like to thank Mr. Moe and Mr. Adel and Mrs.Karen for teaching us and giving us this great opportunity.” – Mohammed, Letters from Palestine participant. 

“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 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.” – Minna, Letters from Palestine participant

“I decided to take part in the letters from Palestine project to do something new and to learn how to talk about my country (Palestine) and how to educate others about it, about its culture, and about the Palestinian reality we are living in, because most people around the world barely know anything about it. I think that this project is important because some people believe in some stereotypes or think that Palestine is not a very good country because it has been occupied since ages, or they may think that the occupation is caused by Palestinians, but that is not true. I am so excited to proceed with this project and for sure take part in more such programs with Encompass Trust in the future. ” – Mariam, Letters from Palestine participant.

“This project is so interesting and fun, it has many advantages and many reasons that make me love being a part of it. Social anxiety is a part of my life and only socializing will help me get over it. This project did really help me with this part even though it was hard for me. I also feel that this project is already helping me a lot with cultivating my personality, improving my writing and my public-speaking skills. I am so glad I have already made some new nice friends and we have made some memories. This project makes me like learning and studying more because we learn and have fun at the same time.” – Zaina, Letters from Palestine participant