Fuchfakina- The way the name sounds to the American ear is the way that I feel though.The last few days have been long; very long, and very emotional. It's not that I'm not glad that I saw and heard the things that I have, but hearing person after person bash Jewish people over and over has been hard. Especially since I know that we aren't going to get the Israeli side of the conflict in this seminar. I told the director that in order for this to be a true seminar on the Middle East that we needed to hear the Israeli point of view and all he said was, "You get that every day in the news." I have to disagree. True, it is there, but not everyone hears it. There are people on this trip who do not know the other side, and they are going to go home and teach all the information we receive here as the gospel truth. It bugs me.
Yes, yes I know. I knew I was going to be inundated with the Palestinian viewpoint and as I have said to many of you, I wanted to hear it. As most everyone reading this blog knows, a good part of my childhood was spent in Mamaroneck, NY. Up until last year New York had more Jews then Israel, so therefor it was inevitable that many of my friends growing up were Jewish. Here in California, many of my closest friends are Jewish also, and not too long ago, I spent two summers in Israel. So over the years I had heard many opinions about Israel. It would have been impossible for me not to, in fact that was one of the reasons for coming on this trip. I wanted to "hear" the other side. Not the rhetoric spouted by Berkeley liberals, but the true Palestinian opinion.
Well, I have heard it.
On Wednesday we went to the the Wadi Seer Vocational Training Center run by the UNWARA. (United Nations Works and Relief Agency) Here we met with two men. One was the Principal of the center and the other was the head of ANWARA.
First the principle spoke. He showed us a movie about a man who was a child in 1948 in the West Bank. The man's whole family was killed, neighbors thought that he was dead also, but as they were burying the family in a mass unmarked grave, the child whined in pain. He was nursed back to health and ended up being adopted by a neighbor's family which fled the West Bank to Jordan. The movie showed horrible living conditions and untold violence. At the end it showed the man with all of his grand children. "Two for every one of his brothers and sisters who were killed by the Israeli Zionists in 1948".
Then the principal spoke about the center. It is 50 years old and has an excellent record of offering OFFJT (off the job training). For the past 50 years it has offered vocational education to 1000's of Palestinian refugees. They have two main schools, one two year high school program for 10th and 11th grade with 700 male students and one two year post secondary education technical program with 150 male students and 150 female students.
The HS program offers such things as auto maintenance, welding, electrical, office and computer trainings. The Post Secondary program offers electronics, civil engineering, surveying, computer technology...
The program has the highest level of accreditation by the Jordanian Ministry of Higher Education and 93 % of its students pass the state finial exams as compared to 63% from the government schools. It had 8 our of the 10 highest ranked vocational students this year and has increased its enrollment 15%. In addition it is adding auto electronics and computer technology this year. It has a 100% employability rate with many of its graduates being employed in the gulf states of The United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia.
The institute attributes its success to:
- The high loyalty of its instructors - many were students.
- It is always updating its curriculum.
- It recognizes successful instructors with incentive pay.
Next the man from ANWARA spoke.
ANWARA was established in 1949 and its first day of operation was May 2, 1950. It was established by the United Nations as a relief, social services , and education program for Palestinian Refugees (A refugee is a person not living in their homeland because of war AND their decedents.) There were many refugees who fled Palestine in 1948 including Greeks and Turks ANWARA helps all of these people, but not the people who live in Gaza or those that left Gaza after 1967 .(At this point the man from the vocational center forcibly interrupted and say,"NO! You've got it wrong, they didn't just 'flee' they were violently removed! Their homes were burned, their children killed! They were systematically destroyed by the ISRAELI ZIONISTS who now live in THEIR homes and farm THEIR land.)
The man from ANWARA took the microphone back, thanked the principal, and continued.
ANWARA does not offer services of any kind to the Palestinians in Gaza or who fled Gaza since it they are considered Egyptian. (Egypt disagrees.)
1/3 of the world's Palestinians live in refugee camps. ANWARA gives complete housing, food, medical and educational care to the refugees. They have 177 schools which educate 130,000 students. Since there are so many students each school building houses two separate schools; one that runs from 7 -12 and another that runs from 12-4. Children go to school 6 days a week and the camp follows both the curriculum of the host country and the Palestinian curriculum. (Palestinian curriculum includes ongoing units on the Palestinian perspective of the history of Palestine. Israel is not recognized as a country, but instead spoken about as a "Zionist destructive force that needs to be eradicated".)
There is no object poverty for any Palestinian, but there is underemployment and many people live below the Jordanian Poverty line.
ANWARA is closely monitored by the Jordanian Government and is the only recognized organization to help Palestinian refugees. Other Palestinian organizations like the PLO, (Palestine Liberation Army, which has now morphed into the Fawta Party which runs the West Bank), and Hamas, (which now runs Gaza), are not officially recognized and CANNOT under any circumstances, run any camp inside of Jordan.
To make sure that ANWARA is being accountable in the area of education, the children educated in ANWARA camps are required to take the standardized nationwide Jordanian tests. They are given in the 4th, 8th, and 10th grades in Arabic, English, math, and science. ANWARA schools always rank 1st or 2nd in the tests.
Thanks to ANWARA, the Palestinian population has the highest educational levels in the whole Middle East. This includes Israel. The literacy rate in Palestinian refugee camps higher than that of their host countries. It is believed that this high level of education is due to the fact that upward economic and social mobility is completely related to education. Palestinians see Education as a way out of poverty.
Funding for ANWARA comes from donations from NGOs (Non Government Organizations) as well as assisted contrubutions from national governments. The United Nations does not fund them directly. 99% comes from Western Nations, 1% comes from the Arab Nations. When asked why this was, the man stated that the Arab nations' stance was that they supply the jobs so they didn't need to supply the education.
Lastly, the man wanted us to know that a good part of the curriculum was integrated with lessons on conflict resolution and tolerance. He wanted to make it clear that violence of any kind was strongly condemned, and acknowledgement of the equality of all cultures was taught.
Above him was a poster of all the flags of the world, except one.
1 comment:
Smart writing. Keep it up.
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