Sharing and storytelling in the Palestine

Sharek Stories: Sharing and storytelling in the Palestine
By the Rev. Darryn Hewson

Note: The Peace With Justice offering taken each year is divided between the PNW Conference and General Board of Church & Society. The Rev. Darryn Hewson presents this story about a grant awarded from Conference funds in 2012.

About a year-and-a-half ago Sharek Stories was born out of a couple of dreams. Lubna Alzaroo, whom I met in Geneva at a World Council of Churches gathering, shared her dream with me to give kids in her native Palestine books in English as a way of expanding their world. Learning English is essential for children in Palestine. It is a requirement to graduate, to get into university, to get a good job or simply to participate in the broader world. Books in English, however are not easy to find in Palestine and children’s books are nearly impossible to get.

That idea related to a dream of my own. My mom, a first grade teacher and a reading specialist who instilled in me a love of stories, died two years ago and I wanted to do something to honor her memory. When Lubna shared her goal with me, I knew I had found an opportunity to do just that. Students in Palestine don’t have books, and teachers have not been given the tools to help students engage with English. They need to start early and build a foundation. The goal is to get more books to the schools and students, but we also want to train teachers in the art of storytelling to make learning English something kids want to do. It is important to me that we help teachers too. Teachers in Palestine are an inspiration as many right now are still preparing students for college exams despite a strike and being several months behind on getting paid. This is a further justice issue as we try to support the teachers.

We got a grant from the British Council and collected around 750 books last year here in the US and in the UK. A number of churches helped in our collecting. Some were Methodist and a Lutheran, a Presbyterian and a Buddhist Zen center have helped as well. University Temple UMC (Seattle, Wash.) gets the award for gathering the largest number of books so far.

Getting things to Palestine is not easy. About half of the books we shipped at book rate and the rest I took with me as luggage in June 2012 when I lead a teacher’s storytelling training. A Peace with Justice Grant helped cover most of the shipping.

We worked with the Palestinian Ministry of Education to bring in 16 first and second grade teachers and one secondary school English teacher along with one of the head teachers in charge of teacher training to be a part of a workshop. We had them create stories, practice group and individual storytelling and talked about not just how to tell a story, but why it is important. The teachers were very enthusiastic and the Ministry of Education asked us to put together a longer training for next year. We have also been invited back to visit the schools and tell some stories there as well. Thanks to the grants we received we were able to provide the training and lunches as well as all the books at no cost to the schools or the teachers. The first round of book gathering and training was a great success and we are looking forward to round two hopefully this spring. For more about us, find us on Facebook under Sharek Stories or visit our webpage sharekstories.org.

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