Gateshead Cultural Ambassador's diary from Lebanon study visit
For Refugee Week
Mrs Patricia Riddell is a special Cultural Ambassador teacher. She covers schools across Gateshead as a supply teacher, taking all her CCA information along with her.
Patricia has just returned from a study visit to the Lebanon and has sent this extract from her diary for other Cultural Ambassadors and interested teachers to read:
I went to the Lebanon with a group of teachers into the schools in the Palestinian refugee camps in the Spring Bank Holiday with a charity organisation called Education Action International.
Monday
Today we visit schools in the Shatila Refugee Camp. Fifty yards from the school, 1,000 names on a wall mark a mass grave and ensure that those massacred in a three day killing spree are not forgotten. It puts is in a sombre mood. We are guided around the camp and are shocked by the terrible deprivation of the estimated 15,000 refugees living in Shatila. They are cramped into an area little bigger than a football pitch.
In the school I read the hopes of the children on their frieze - ’I want to be in Palestine'.
I meet my co-teacher and the smiling children in their pink tops. Later in the week I’ll be teaching them.
Time to meet Ms Afaf Maki, Head of Education at UNRWA (United Nations Relief & Works Agency), which runs the schools. She is proud of what they have achieved with such limited resources. There are not enough schools so a double shift system is in operation with boys studying in the morning and girls in the afternoon.
Later at ARC, Education Action’s other partner in Lebanon, we learn how crucial seeing the child as a whole and not just in terms of their education needs is. This is especially important here where life outside school is a
struggle. I am raising awareness in the schools here of the educational needs of the children. I have lots of photographs, a video, profiles, stories etc. If you are interested and would like to know more please contact me on my e-mail: riddellpat@hotmail.com
I am fund raising for the charity which gives help to educate children in those countries, where because of fighting, the children are denied a quality education. If you are interested in donating to this charity please contact me or the charity at:
Education Action International, 14 Dufferin Street, London EC1Y 8PD
international@eductio-action.org
020 7426 5820
Postscript:
Hear Pat talk about her trip next Sunday, 2nd of July on BBC Radio Newcastle's Sunday Breakfast Show with John Hall at 8.20am.
Posted by Barbara-Ann Brown on June 21, 2006 3:11 PM
Trackback Pings
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.cultureandcreativitygateshead.org/cgi-bin/mt-tb.cgi/327
Gateshead Cultural Ambassador's diary from Lebanon study visit
For Refugee Week
Mrs Patricia Riddell is a special Cultural Ambassador teacher. She covers schools across Gateshead as a supply teacher, taking all her CCA information along with her.
Patricia has just returned from a study visit to the Lebanon and has sent this extract from her diary for other Cultural Ambassadors and interested teachers to read:
I went to the Lebanon with a group of teachers into the schools in the Palestinian refugee camps in the Spring Bank Holiday with a charity organisation called Education Action International.
Monday
Today we visit schools in the Shatila Refugee Camp. Fifty yards from the school, 1,000 names on a wall mark a mass grave and ensure that those massacred in a three day killing spree are not forgotten. It puts is in a sombre mood. We are guided around the camp and are shocked by the terrible deprivation of the estimated 15,000 refugees living in Shatila. They are cramped into an area little bigger than a football pitch.
In the school I read the hopes of the children on their frieze - ’I want to be in Palestine'.
I meet my co-teacher and the smiling children in their pink tops. Later in the week I’ll be teaching them.
Time to meet Ms Afaf Maki, Head of Education at UNRWA (United Nations Relief & Works Agency), which runs the schools. She is proud of what they have achieved with such limited resources. There are not enough schools so a double shift system is in operation with boys studying in the morning and girls in the afternoon.
Later at ARC, Education Action’s other partner in Lebanon, we learn how crucial seeing the child as a whole and not just in terms of their education needs is. This is especially important here where life outside school is a
struggle. I am raising awareness in the schools here of the educational needs of the children. I have lots of photographs, a video, profiles, stories etc. If you are interested and would like to know more please contact me on my e-mail: riddellpat@hotmail.com
I am fund raising for the charity which gives help to educate children in those countries, where because of fighting, the children are denied a quality education. If you are interested in donating to this charity please contact me or the charity at:
Education Action International, 14 Dufferin Street, London EC1Y 8PD
international@eductio-action.org
020 7426 5820
Postscript:
Hear Pat talk about her trip next Sunday, 2nd of July on BBC Radio Newcastle's Sunday Breakfast Show with John Hall at 8.20am.
Posted by Barbara-Ann Brown on June 21, 2006 3:11 PM
Trackback Pings
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.cultureandcreativitygateshead.org/cgi-bin/mt-tb.cgi/327
Your Comments