“Hand in Hand, We shall rebuild it” Initiative

Under the title “Hand in hand to build it again”, the youth team of Sibat, from Al-Zahra Secondary School for Girls, the first literary secondary school, in cooperation with volunteer Naama Zaqzouq from the Jenin governorate, were able to plan and implement activities that aimed at reviving the Sibat old market of Jenin. The ultimate goal was to revive the cultural and civilizational features of the market, which dates back to the Ottoman era. The organization of the activity was part of an initiative implemented by the students of the “community leadership” program, in partnership with UNICEF.

Throughout the organization of the initiative, students were able to gain experience in planning, teamwork and in the art of talking to organizations and communicating with them. This is in addition to applying project-financing mechanism correctly and thoughtfully with the school administration’s support to students, which in turn enabled them to implement all four of their activities, including the festival organization by collecting donations to carry out all events. The initiative team was able to network and engage many organizations in the implementation of events and secure their attendance and their financial assistance. In addition, they were able to organize musical, cultural and scout activities, plus the reciting of strophic Arabic poem in colloquial language. All of this reflected their determination and their great success in organizing the four events.

Ni’emeh Zaqzouq, a volunteer in Jenin asserts that: “My experience in training school students was the first of its kind with INJAZ Palestine. This experience deepened my ability to deal with this age group of young people, and helped me in forming new relationships with both students and new volunteers. I thus was able to make 60 new friends from among the volunteers who participated in the initiative. In addition, I succeeded in increasing my network relationships with civil society organizations through field visits that I made to their headquarters.