Tadamun
Travel scholarship 2016
Tadamun is a human rights organisation based in the Netherlands that supports children’s right in the Middle East, with a focus on Palestine. The Lutfia Rabbani Foundation supported Tadamun with a travel scholarship for its action-research visit to Palestine and Israel. With a team of four creative professionals: Basthios Vloemans (artistic director), Ilse Evers (dancer and artist), Tina Lenz (artistic director and design anthropologist) and Inge Derksen (journalist) Tadamun went on an action-research visit to Palestine from 23-28 February. You can read about their experience down below.
‘At the end of February 2016 Tadamun, together with a team of volunteers left for a trip to Palestine to research new ways of drawing attention to the rights of Palestinian children. Tadamun was asked to create a campaign that would emphasize the rights of Palestinian children and to make a wide audience aware of these rights and the violations of these rights. Tadamun made an open call for creative spirits to join their trip to Palestine and to help with creating campaigns. In response to this call 4 artistic and independent creatives were selected and invited to join the 5-day trip to Palestine. There they, together with Mieke Zagt and the DCIP network, spoke to Palestinian children and youth about who they are, where they come from and what they dream of.
The team visited East-Jerusalem, Ramallah, Jalazon refugee camp, Hebron, Nablus and two cities in Israel: Nazareth and Tel Aviv. Unfortunately they were unable to visit Gaza due to difficult obtained permits. Ilse Evers and Inge Derksen opened the workshops and assisted the children in the creative process with the use of their communication and theatre expertise. The children were asked: ‘Who are you?’ ‘ Where do you live and how do your surroundings look?’ ‘ Where do you want to go?’ and ‘What is your dream?’. In every workshop 15-20 children participated. The first workshop, at the refugee camp in Jalazon, had the youngest participants. These children were between the ages of 8-10 years old. The Tadamun team used DCIP translators to communicate with the children. The kids drew their home, their favorite places and afterwards their dream locations.
In Hebron and Nablus the children were older (12-17) and were able to communicate in English. The children were asked to draw a metro network from their home to their favorite place to their dream location. Children often drew the holey places in Jerusalem or Hebron, or the beach in Tel Aviv as desirable places. But some wished to go to Korea or to visit Paris for a break-dance match. One boy wished to visit his father in prison (he had to cross two check-points first) and drew a sidetrack that ended in one, big hart.
