Dignity Day – Palestine
Global Dignity Day
20th October, 2009
Ramallah, Palestine
Introduction:
Global Dignity Day is an annual event that takes place on the 20th of October every year where more than 30 countries have celebrated this initiative for individuals to lead a dignified life and to increase the meaning of dignity to others by appreciating and emphasizing the role it plays in our lives.
Paltel Group Foundation for Community Development (PGF) was pleased to work under the guidance of Operation Hope in bringing this special day to Palestine. PGF quickly realized the importance of this event and decided to hold it in Palestine for the first time as dignity is a very crucial concept to the Palestinian people who have been severely suffering from occupation for several decades.
Global Dignity Day Session:
The event took place at the Friends Boys School in Ramallah targeting 60 male and female students aged between 12 to 14 years old (7th and 8th grades).
Staff (Event facilitators):
Samah Abouon Hamad. (PGF)
Neda Morrar (Paltel Group)
Rula Al Baradiah (Paltel Group)
Mahar Saleh (Paltel Group)
Rana Riady (PGF)
Wafa’ Abadi (PGF)
Suhaib Jarrar (PGF)
Goals:
- To clarify the concept of Dignity day
- Explain the principles of Dignity day
- Encourage young people to define what dignity means to them, to create a certain concept of dignity and what does dignity mean to Palestinians living under illegal Israeli occupation
The Session:
The session started with an introduction given by the PGF Director General, Mrs. Samah Abuoun Hamad. The introduction provided gave a brief overview of the one hour program, dignity day and what is required of the students in the session and how they will contribute and benefit from the activities. Icebreaking was needed for both staff and students to bond and encourage students to enjoy as well as participate in the session.
The students were given a copy of the Dignity Day principles, where various students volunteered to read the principles and interpret what each principle meant to them.
The staff then handed out colored cards to all the students, where the students then wrote on the cards their own definitions of Dignity in a sentence in order to define what the term means to each one of them. After completion of this task, each student thumb- tacked their card on various boards where students were given the opportunity to explain what they had written down. It is important to note that a majority of the students took this topic very seriously and assured the staff that dignity is the right of every Palestinian, but not a right given to every Palestinian living under occupation. Many students turned to the Gaza war that erupted in December 2008 and January 2009 to express the lack of dignity in Palestine and described how they saw on the nightly news the children of Gaza being slaughtered by Israeli missiles, where no one was questioning such brutal acts nor being concerned with the rights of dignity of the children located in the Gaza Strip.
The Friends School Principal, Mr. Mahmoud Amer warmly welcomed this initiative and thanked PGF and Operation Hope for holding such an occasion at the school since he viewed it with high priority due to the long term illegal occupation suffered by all students. During the session, the students’ attention and participation increased as they realized Dignity should be a part everyone’s very existence. A student named, Husam Awashreh, 13 years old defined dignity as “freedom for all occupied nations.” Lina Enbtaweh, a seventh grader defined it as “the freedom of speech.” Naji Herzallah, 12 years old added “during the war on Gaza we felt we lost our dignity because the Palestinians were not acting as one unit.”
This initiative brought about students’ attention to the current status in Palestine and posed the question back to the class: “Do we have dignity?.” The students quickly started connecting their thoughts with the current reality on the ground. Faced with the grim reality, they began to question whether or not the Palestinian people lead dignified lives. Ala’ Al Ramahe, a seventh grader described the loss of his dignity when he has had to cross the borders between
Palestine and Jordan, where time consuming and difficult procedures have been installed by the Israeli Government that run for hours on end. Fares, a 12 year old student stated that, “dignity is life for a human being, the air he breaths and a man without dignity is like a black cloud in a white sky.” Sara Al Rayyan said: “I feel humiliated and sorry for being unable to visit my family in the Gaza Strip especially after the war.” All participants had the chance to express themselves and answer the questions: What is dignity? Does it exist in our society? Is dignity important for someone’s life? Can our actions influence dignity in others?
Towards the end of the session the facilitators asked the students to provide one word to describe dignity using the alphabets and the followings words were jotted down by a staff member: Acceptance, brave, choices, dignity, eat, freedom, generous, honest, independent, joyful, kindness, life, morality, nationality, opportunity, personality, quality of life, respect, sharing, trust, universal, voices, work, youth and zealous.
At the conclusion of the session, the students left the room buzzing due to this introduction upon them of the emphasis of dignity, and with it came along a feeling of confusion, since they haven’t been exposed to dignity in this way before. They left the session with a new idea to think about and to share with others.
November 11th, 2009 at 8:52 pm
Looks like a wonderful event!