Building playgrounds in Palestine: ‘This is their special place and refuge’
hen Susan Abulhawa’s daughter, Natalie – now 18 – was small, her favourite outing was to the playground in their Philadelphia neighbourhood. It was nothing unusual – swings, a slide, a climbing frame – but for Susan and Natalie it was a fixture, a chance to run off energy, explore and meet others.
“She wanted to go every day. Playgrounds were pretty big in our lives,” says Susan. So when, in 2001, the pair visited Jerusalem – from where Susan’s parents had fled the 1967 Arab-Israeli war – their absence was glaringly obvious.
“We were walking around the city and there were so many empty lots, full of rubble. I was thinking, ‘Wouldn’t it be great if there was a playground here or here?’ The children’s experiences were so far removed from Natalie’s. The gap was – still is – huge.”
She has described her return to Palestine as a reawakening, saying that “when I heard the adhan for the first time and realised how much I’d missed it, I broke down in tears”.
She decided to do something. The result is Playgrounds for Palestine (PfP), a non-profit organisation that has set up 22 children’s parks in the region, including in refugee camps in Lebanon and Syria, with five more in the pipeline.
Susan, 45, is a human rights activist and writer passionate about the fate of Palestine. Her first novel, Mornings in Jenin, a bestseller in 2010, was a raw and emotional account of four generations of one Palestinian family.
Her new book is The Blue Between Sky and Water – an often autobiographical story of a family forced to flee their Palestinian home in 1947.
Many of Susan’s cousins still live in Jerusalem. Other family members are scattered around the Middle East. Working to improve the situation of Palestinians living in the difficult conditions of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, has become her full-time occupation.
This, she explains, is not something she could have predicted on her return from that 2001 trip. “Everyone can do something. I never really questioned whether it was my responsibility,” she says, “but a hospital or a school were beyond my reach. A playground seemed manageable. It isn’t changing the world, but it is bringing joy to those who use it.”
She was working as a scientific researcher and not making much money, so she borrowed $500, taught herself to build a website, got some friends on board and persuaded a manufacturer to donate playground equipment.
The PfP remains, purposefully, small and grass roots. Its focus draws in those who would otherwise be wary of entangling themselves too deeply in the politics of the Middle East, she believes. “At our annual dinner, we have women in hijab, Jewish supporters, black, white. It is wonderfully diverse. Helping children is a safe way to express solidarity with Palestinians.”
Source: www.theguardian.com