During the most recent vicious Israeli military operation in the Gaza Strip which was launched on 8 July, 2014, 1.8 million people have been subjected to a series of traumatic incidents, and most have experienced at least one death in the family, physical violence, destruction of their homes, schools, KGS with an estimate of 490,000 internally displaced people (IDPs). Reports of OCHA confirmed that about 373,000 children have had some kind of direct traumatic experience and require immediate psycho-social support

1. Heyam Alhayek
Qattan Centre for the Child
(QCC)
Culture and Conflict: Lessons
from the Field
Gaza – Palestine
May, 2015

2. Gaza Strip is part of the Occupied Palestinian Territories which lies on the Eastern coast
of the Mediterranean sea, and has one of the highest population density in the world.
According to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS) Statistics 4th quarter,
2014:
• Estimated Population was 1,790,010;
• Percentage of Population Below 15 Years, was 43.1%;
• Unemployment Rate was 43.9;
• 65% of Gaza population lives below the poverty line.

3. A. M. Qattan Foundation
• An Independent; charity, not-for-profit development organization.
• Founded and registered in 1993 in UK; in Palestine since 1998.
• Working fields: Culture and Education with a particular focus on children, teachers
and young artists.
• Several Interventions: Lebanon through Selat: links through the arts; UK through
Mosaic Rooms.

4. Culture and Arts
Programme
Qattan Centre for
the Child in Gaza
Qattan Centre for
Educational Research
and Development
The Foundation works through three main programs
1 2 3

5. • Empower free-thinking.
• Enlighten individuals to overcome the challenges of war and injustice.
• Create a flourishing and dynamic society in Palestine and the Arab world.

6. Qattan Centre for the Child in
Gaza City (QCC)
The Qattan Centre offers a variety of
library, information, cultural and
recreational services as well as training
opportunities and entertainment to
children up to 15 years of age, their
parents, and childcare professionals.

7. • Nurture children’s curiosity.
• Expand children’s knowledge.
• Facilitate children’s access to outside
cultures.
• Enhance children’s appreciation of
arts and sciences,
• Consolidate children’s sense of
belonging to their cultural identity.

8. .
Gaza Children in Conflict Zones
• Children between 8 -15 years old witnessed 3 Israeli Wars (2008, 2012, 2014)
• During the most recent vicious Israeli military operation in the Gaza Strip which was
launched on 8 July, 2014, 1.8 million people have been subjected to a series of traumatic
incidents, and most have experienced at least one death in the family, physical violence,
destruction of their homes, schools, KGS with an estimate of 490,000 internally displaced
people (IDPs).

9. • Reports of OCHA confirmed that about 373,000 children have had some kind of
direct traumatic experience and require immediate psycho-social support and
the number of affected children is increasing
• 98.3% of children from Gaza show signs of PTSD.
(Gaza Mental Health Community Program)

10. Creative alternatives to Conflict

11. Artistic Interventions: Creative Responses to Conflict
• QCC worked in coordination with local and international organizations to respond
to the emergency needs in a way that will complement other interventions in Gaza.
• QCC exerted great efforts to provide support and assistance in attempts to
alleviate the impact of the traumatic events for children and their families to
overcome war crisis through creative arts & cultural activities.

12. QCC Interventions During the
ongoing Israeli aggression &
cease-fires:
QCC team members encountered
danger face to face and through
hotlines while conducting a
number of unique recreational
activities such as visiting hospitals,
shelters, civil institutes and
kindergartens in Gaza Strip.

13. Psycho-social support
activities Outreach of
QCC
Psycho-social support
activities in QCC
Psycho-social support
activities in UNRWA
Shelters
1 2
QCC Psycho-social support activities conducted
through three Fields:
3
QCC Interventions After Israeli Aggression

14. Psycho-social support activities for QCC members
(Children & Parents)
QCC made a quick response and conducted emergency activities (Visual Art , music,
dance & movement, drama & role play , Story telling and basic reading activities) to
improve the psychological well-being of the children and their parents to bring them
back to their normal routine life.

15. Visual Art
1
Visual Art offered children healing opportunity includes activities
designed to help children understand and express their feelings &
emotions related to traumatic experiences in their lives.

16. Children Art Club engaged children in art workshops
that reflected their 51- days war experience

17. The use of painting and drawing, sculpting, collages, and digital
art with children experienced PTSD symptoms demonstrated
that “healing arts” lowered PTSD symptoms

18. Music
2
“When words are not enough music tells their stories ..”

19. Children were engaged to use music
in a variety of ways (e.g., playing
music, listening to music and sharing
songs) in order to relax and to
encourage emotional expression in a
non-threatening environment.

20. Through the playing of
music,
› children became able to
learn how to self-regulate
emotions and they could
form interpersonal
connections.

21. Drama & Role Play
3
“Drama reaches those the verbal therapy does not ..”

22. Drama provided children with space for self expression, reduced frustration and
provided hope through accomplishment, pride and happiness.
Drama provided the opportunity for children to create stories and act them out in
groups as healing and transformative tool that help enhancing problem-solving skills

23. DRAMA AND PERFORMANCE
Drama activities helped resolving trauma, revive memories and help children
to rebuild their internal self through sharing stories and performing it on the
theater

24. Drama breaks silence:
 Children and parents learnt
how to break the silence as
the mothers participate in the
activities of "I play with my
child" program..
“Performing the play & seeing it was
really interesting. It made me see
things in a different way..”
Feedback from one of the mothers who
has participated in the program

25. Narratives and
Storytelling:
Narratives and Storytelling with
children helped them to reframe
their life story in a more
integrative way than it was in
the past and moved them
toward new psychological self-
understanding and
understanding social world too.

26. Mantle of the Expert
Approach:
The mantle of the expert is a
student-centered dramatic-inquiry-
based approach to teaching and
learning invented and developed
by Professor Dorothy Heathcote
Using Mantle of the Expert technics
promotes positive energy through a
sense of connection, greater motivation,
positive feeling through cooperation,
increased self-esteem and developed
social skills.

27. Expressive Writing:
 Expressive writing demonstrated
effectiveness in reducing the severity
of depression.
“ Before writing, I stopped telling others
about (the trauma). I never told anyone
about it. But afterwards, I opened up to
close friends, and I think that it made our
relationship better.”
Feedback from one of the children who has
participated in Expressive Writing program

28. Swiss Agency for Development and Qattan Center
for Child Cooperation

29. Over the past years, the Swiss Agency for Development held numerous
partnerships with the Qattan Centre for the Child through implementing several
projects that adopt creative arts and cultural initiatives as a strategy to relieve
children in processes of social transformation and peace building

30. Read, Paint & Play Project
1
Period: 01/04 -31/12/2009

31. Read, Paint & Play project
aimed to:
Contribute the improvement of the well-being of
a large section of Gaza Strip's child population,
through encouraging the love of reading,
engaging the parents through the family literacy
program, arts appreciation, promoting
Information Technology, psychosocial support to
traumatized children, and capacity building to
local professionals.

32. Musical theatre production of
"Sleeping Beauty"
2
Period: 09/2010 - 03/2011

33. › Children who participated in
the performance became
more accepting to their
feelings and were able to
recover from the aftermath of
the conflict.
› 24 children took part in the
theatrical performance and
more than thousand of
Gaza children enjoyed
watching the performance.

34. Create – Ibda’a Project
(Mobile Library for Children)
3
Period: 10/2011 - 12/2014

35. Create – Ibda’a”project aimed to:
improve the well-being, critical thinking and creative
potential of children in Gaza.

36. • Create – Ibda’a project provides an array of integrated cultural, educational
and recreational activities.
• The Project targeted marginalized areas in Gaza governorates and served
approximately 20,000 male and female children.

37. .
Child-Friendly Spaces Project
4
Period: 10/2014 - 03/2015

38. A Child-Friendly Space is a special area where children can play, socialize, and
begin to recover during emergencies.
Child-Friendly Spaces enable parents to have time strengthen their relation with
their children and start to reestablish their lives.

39. Project Background:
On 28 February 2009 the Qattan
Centre for the Child led the first
launch of the Child-
Friendly space Project between
2009 - 2013, with joint funding
from the Friends of Waldorf
Education, Germany, which
targeted children who were living
in Samouni area during the Israeli
aggression on Gaza.

40. Child-Friendly Spaces project
aimed to protect children
from harm and provide a
sense of normalcy and
safety when their lives are
disrupted by disasters.

41. On the 1st of April, 2013 QCC launched a new phase of Child-Friendly Area:
Al- Samouni Project, with 100% funding from the A.M. Qattan Foundation.

42. In early November 2014, QCC launched a new phase of the Child-Friendly spaces
project; a jointly funded initiative by the Swiss Agency for Development and
Cooperation (SDC) and the A.M. Qattan Foundation. The project targeted six areas in
the Gaza Strip after the aggression on Gaza 2014.

43. Gaza Music School Project (GMS)
5
Project Period: 10/2011 - 12/2014

44. Project’s Background:
A.M. foundation initiated the Gaza Music
School project (GMS) in 2008 in
cooperation with The Department of
Music & Drama at Gotenberg University,
Sweden and co-funded by the Swedish
International Development Agency
(SIDA).

45. › In 2009, the Qattan Foundation and
the Edward Said National
Conservatory of Music (ESNCM) signed
a memorandum of understanding in
which ESNCM will provide technical
support and consultations to the GMS.
› This partnership will ultimately facilitate
and gradually transfer GMS to ESNCM
as its first branch in the Gaza Strip at
project conclusion.

46.  The school was launched as a
three-year pilot project with a
fundamental goal to develop
music education, promote
music appreciation, and to
introduce music as a tool for
creative expression.
 The GMS has been a place where
musically talented children (age 7-
16) are incubated, where they
learn the joy of the music, and
share it with their community.

47. The program initially offered 5 instruments training program, then it was
expanded to 9 in the fourth year to include: Qanoun, Oud, Piano, Violin,
Guitar, Cello, Percussions, Trumpet, and Nai.

48. The GMS was well received by the local community. It was also well
received by a number of international organizations with interest in
music education

49. › Gaza Music School was bombed and
destroyed during the war in Jan. 2009,
and all instruments were disappeared.
› “After a lull in the war, children came
to the burnt building and they played
over the rubble”
› Ibrahim al-Najjar, Gaza Music School’s
coordinator.

50. Music as a therapy for PTSD
› Mahmoud Kohail, 8 years old, has
studied the qanoon & took the first
prize in a Palestinian wide
competition in oriental music for
ages 7 to 11.
› Mahmoud suffered the same post-
traumatic stress disorder [(PTSD)]
that nearly all Gaza’s children
suffer, as well as an attention deficit
disorder

51. “Music has made an immense
difference in Mahmoud’s behavior. It
has been a therapy for his PTSD and
means of teaching him to focus.”
Emad Kohail, Mahmoud’s father
.

52. Five kids from GMS went to Lebanon to take part in “the Arabs’ Got Talent
2015”