With the end of our youth media program in Jabaliya refugee camp last week, we conducted evaluations and screenings of the films with the families and local community, along with a photography exhibition and large public screening hosted at the Mat’haf (Gaza Museum) from August 1 - 13, 2010.

The workshop evaluations were conducted in focus groups through follow-up questionnaires and group discussions, as well as video-based interviews conducted by youth among themselves. See a brief excerpt of evaluation interviews edited by youth in the 4-min video below.

The “Re-imagining Project” is a program of digital video, photography and storytelling workshops that supports Palestinian children and youth in expressing their cultural identity, personal narratives, and creative visions through participatory digital media.

The photo exhibit and screening events showcase work emerging from two 3-week digital media and storytelling workshops conducted from July 4 – 25, 2010 with 10-15 year old children, in collaboration with the Women’s Program Center in Jabaliya refugee camp, Gaza and the Al Aroub Play and Animation Center in Al Aroub refugee camp, West Bank.

The final week of our workshop in Jabaliya refugee camp in Gaza focused on getting youth narratives filmed on-location along with editing the video shorts. In the upcoming days we plan to finalize all films and screen them in the local community, along with post-workshop evaluations.

More photos and updates on our blog: http://voicesbeyondwalls.blogspot.com

The following summarizes our experiences in the final week:

Day 11: A day of ups and downs shooting video in the camp…

A day with many ups and downs - we had left video cameras with all groups and trainers to continue filming over the weekend. All but one group reported in their morning check-in that they were nearly done with their primary shooting. Many had worked hard on the weekend in new locations and reworked narratives.

In our second week of the workshop the children and trainers in all groups began developing their story concepts and storyboards, along with acting and shooting video on-location for their films. Below is a day-by-day summary of our experiences with the workshop in Jabaliya refugee camp in Gaza.

More photos and updates on our blog: http://voicesbeyondwalls.blogspot.com

Day 6: Creative story-writing

We began the workshop with a focus on creative story-writing; the session was lead by Asmaa Elghoul, an award winning writer and journalist in Gaza, who's been volunteering some time with our workshops.

Voices Beyond Walls and Les Enfants, Le Jeu et l’Education (EJE) began its first participatory digital media and storytelling workshop in the UNRWA Woman’s center in Jabaliya refugee camp in northern Gaza from July 4 – 25, 2010.

The three-week workshop is being conducted with five local staff members from the woman’s center and 5-6 volunteers (from youth organizations like Tamer and Sharek), all of whom participated in the Training of Trainers (ToT) course previously conducted by Voices Beyond Walls at the Canaan Institute of New Pedagogy from June 28-30, 2010. The workshop participants include 25 children (boy and girls aged 10-15) from Jabaliya camp.

Another “comparison group” of 25 children are participating in a Dabke (traditional Palestinian dance) workshop conducted in parallel at the center, as part of the pilot research study led by Dr. Nitin Sawhney, examining the role of interventions supporting participatory media, creative expression, and civic engagement among marginalized children undergoing conditions of protracted conflict.

Pre-workshop Planning and Preliminary Focus Group Evaluations

Voices Beyond Walls conducted its first ever 3-day Training of Trainers (ToT) course on participatory digital media and storytelling with youth at the Canaan Institute of New Pedagogy in Gaza City from June 28-30, 2010. The ToT was led by Dr. Nitin Sawhney, with assistance from Asmaa Al Ghoul, an award-winning writer and journalist in Gaza, and Nasser El Sayyed, the lead coordinator for Les Enfants, Le Jeu et l’Education (EJE) in Gaza.

While we expected around 20-25 participants, we were surprised to see around 36 young men and woman coming to attend all 3 days of the course. They all had prior experience working on creative programs with youth in local community centers including Canaan, Tamer Institute, Sharek Youth Forum, Right to Play, and the EJE woman and children’s centers in Gaza refugee camps like Al Abraj, Jabaliya and Rafah. Many even had experience with photo, video and drama techniques and contributed to the critical dialogue in the sessions quite well.

Since 2006, I have been leading a participatory media program called Voices Beyond Walls in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, with a local and international team of artists, filmmakers and educators. This summer our teams are launching a program of parallel workshops in the West Bank and Gaza, as part of our new Re-imagining Project.

The “Re-imagining Project” is a program of digital video, photography and storytelling workshops that supports Palestinian children and youth in expressing their cultural identity, personal narratives, and creative visions through participatory digital media.

This project is a collaboration among Voices Beyond Walls, Les Enfants, Le Jeu et l’Education (EJE), UNRWA and participating community centers in Al Aroub and Jabaliya refugee camps.

The program consists of the following key activities in summer 2010:

I. Conducting two 3-day Training of Trainers (ToT) sessions in Ramallah and Gaza City between June 28 to June 30, 2010. It will be conducted with 20-30 Palestinian volunteers from local youth centers, to provide participatory youth media training and prepare them to serve as potential workshop facilitators.