Rebuilding Amjad Preschool: Giving Hope to Gaza Children
“It’s like heaven in the ruins.”
That’s how Gaza preschool teacher Boshra Hamad described her feelings when she saw her preschool that ANERA rebuilt after the Gaza war of 2014. Amjad preschool had been destroyed during the war, like the neighborhood around it in the northern town of Beit Hanoun. Some 150 preschool children were left without a safe place to take refuge or recapture some normalcy in their lives.
“Rubble was everywhere and nobody could believe that the pile of wreckage that was the preschool could come alive again,” says Boshra.
But as soon as the bombs stopped falling, ANERA partnered with other educational institutions to organize a psychosocial gathering in a vacant plot of land next to the school ruins so children could get together, play and express their emotions through drawings, songs, therapeutic arts and storytelling. “In their drawings, they showed peaceful homes, playgrounds and a new preschool,” she said.
Life in Gaza is intense, Boshra says, where pain and suffering runs deep, so any bit pleasure is something to grab onto. That moment of pleasure came for the children of Amjad preschool. Thanks to funds from the Ajram Family Foundation, the government of Kuwait, and private donors, after 45 days of hard work and dedication, ANERA was able to rebuild the preschool and make their dreams come true.
As Boshra looked through the old photographs of the preschool before the reconstruction, she said parents now call it “Amjad mansion” and are eager to enroll their children in the new facility.
Source: www.anera.org