Zajel is the Arabic word for a carrier pigeon: a symbol of communication and a symbol of peace. The Zajel Program offers a peaceful way by which Palestinian youth can be part of their cause. We seek to answer the misunderstanding and unawareness of people in the West, by representing Palestinian youths in a positive way and by acting as ambassadors for the Palestinian cause.

The Zajel Youth Exchange Program came as the result of a dream. The dream was to develop an exchange program that would assemble youth from diverse backgrounds to interact with Palestinians, and to learn about Palestinian society and political reality.

The Zajel program is based at An-Najah National University in Nablus. Most of the students of our university are from northern cities in the West Bank: Jenin, Qalqilia, Tulkarem and Nablus, amongst others. These cities suffer badly from the Israeli military occupation – movement from one city to the other is made difficult by Military checkpoints and the cities themselves are plagued by Israeli military incursions.

The intention is to provide foreign youth and An-Najah National University students, a venue to create a type of symbiotic relationship that will surpass what other exchange programs have offered.

These conditions make it very hard for young people to get involved in community service programs or serious political and social activities. They also rarely get a chance to meet with people from outside Palestine. This prevents them from expressing their opinions, how they feel or to make friends in other cities and across borders. In many ways the students have been cut off from the rest of the world.

Zajel focuses on three main ideas:

• To challenge the stereotypes about Palestinians that exist in the West, by making our students aware of these misconceptions and providing them with the political, historical and cultural education needed to counter this.

• To foster international communication and intercultural dialogue, to empower our students to accept and deal with different opinions, religions and cultures by bringing them into contact with people from the West.

• To involve the Palestinian youth in organizing activities that serve their community; this builds the self confidence and experience of students, which will help them play a larger role in the future building of a Palestinian state.

There are many ways in which Zajel seeks to bring these ideas into practice, some of which are:

• The Palestine Information Unit promotes Palestinian culture, tradition, history and news. It gives a voice to those usually overlooked by a media obsessed with conflict.

• Voluntary work placements allow international volunteers to help our efforts in a variety of ways, for instance: teaching English, collecting and editing articles for publication, and establishing contacts internationally with youth organizations from across the globe.

• Summer work camps are organized annually for a period of 3 weeks: about 25 volunteers from all over the world are brought together to work at the Refugee Camps, organizing activities for the children. This camp aims to foster a lasting relationship between the international volunteers and the Palestinian community.

•  Video conferences and chat sessions aim to engage lecturers and students from Palestine and the rest of the world in an open dialogue about important and controversial topics of the Middle East. 

• Study visits allow participants to see another side of the conflicts in the Middle East. Study Visits last for two days, and include workshops, lectures and meetings with leaders of the community, giving invaluable insight into this complex region.

•  Galleries are Zajel’s way of preserving the past for future generations: a wealth of information to be stored digitally – for instance, photographs of the Nakba of 1948 or old newspapers.

•  Publications of Zajel include, Testimonies of the Nakba, The Image of the Palestinian Uprising in Western Cartoons, the reports on the Israeli Violations of the Right to Education and The Annual Impressions of the International Work Camp Volunteers.

 

History

The roots of the Zajel Youth Exchange Program lay in a Palestinian NGO called Nashama, in 2001 An-Najah National University, adopted the ideals of Nashama and established the Zajel Youth Exchange Program.

***