Rekindling Childhood in Jenin

The Jenin Creative Cultural Centre offers local children vital opportunities to play, dream and create

The people of Jenin have endured decades of violence and invasions. Despite these two new deaths the streets were quiet yesterday.
Yousef Shalabi runs the Jenin Creative Cultural Centre in the dilapidated city centre. He says he opened the centre in response to the ongoing violence of the occupation.

“During the atrocities here, the people just focused on survival” he says. “You know, we lived through years of seeing young children throwing stones at tanks. It’s craziness when children start confronting tanks. Even now many of the children are just sitting on the streets, waiting for something to happen. They have nothing to do, and we thought it was very important to have a safe space: a place where they could dream.”

The centre opened in 2002, the year more than fifty residents of Jenin refugee camp were killed during a particularly brutal invasion by the Israeli military.
“During that time we were just chasing the pain here in Jenin,” says Yousef. It is very important to document the [Israeli] violations. But we were also suffering from a cultural evaporation, and as Palestinians we want, and need, to maintain our cultural identity.”

The centre works creatively with children across the city. “We are open for anyone” says Yousef. “We have kids coming from the camp, local villages and the city. We give them art classes, training in computers, music and photography.”
He believes these projects irrigate the cultural desert in Jenin. But they also give the children vitality.
“They come here and take part in these projects” he says, “and then we see them start to smile.”

The walls inside the centre are covered in photographs, drawings and artwork, mostly done by the children. Yousef guides us towards one wall: one side is covered in childish drawings of parrots, a sunset over the Al-Aqsa Mosque, and a flower that looks like an orchid. The other side features snipers aiming their guns, a tank firing at a ship, and the famous Palestinian cartoon hero, Handalla, suspended above a field of corpses.

“These drawings were all done by the same boy” says Yousef. “He started making these violent images two days after the war started in Lebanon. The occupation has a huge impact on the minds of our children.”

In light of the two deaths early this morning, we ask him how active the Israeli military is in Jenin these days.
“Compared to two years ago, the situation here is easier” he says.
“But the harassment, retaliations and killings haven’t stopped. One month ago seven children were injured when an Israeli jeep opened fire on them. Three weeks ago three people were killed. Last week another person was killed – and this morning these two men died. The Israeli army is [still] here day and night.”

Children at one of the local community centres in Jenin refugee camp. Local community leaders say the occupation has long term effects on children across the camp, and the city of Jenin.

Ten minutes up the road, in Jenin refugee camp, Farha Abu Al Heja also works with local children. Her community centre inside the camp is threadbare: the windows are broken, and the main room consists of two tables, two dozen plastic chairs and a large TV. Meanwhile the centre is inundated by kids from the camp.

“We see sixty or seventy children a day,” says Farha. “The situation in the camp is very difficult and it directly affects the children. They become very violent – you can see how they behave.”
As soon as we arrived, several young boys strode into the centre carrying large sticks. As we talk they race around the main room, beating the walls, doors and each other.
“This violence is our biggest problem,” says Farha. “The children here are hyperactive, rebellious and very energetic. We have to be very calm with them, or else they become very violent and aggressive quickly.”

Despite reports that Jenin camp is quieter and safer these days, Farha says the Israeli military still invades the camp every night.

Like many of the refugee camps across the West Bank, Jenin has its own armed fighters – and one of them agrees to speak to us.
“The resistance here is less than it was, but it has not stopped” he says. “To live under occupation is resistance. But now there are internal problems between Hamas and Fatah and our political leaders do not invest in the Palestinian resistance.”

He says the in-fighting between Hamas and Fatah has affected the armed fighters badly. “We are re-thinking our resistance against them [the Israeli military]”. “Without effective political work this armed resistance is useless: just an expression of frustration. We have to protect the remains of our resistance, but every resistance movement has to be translated politically, and our Palestinian Authority has no power. The solution is not with them: the only solution is the end of the occupation.”
As the boys hurl themselves across the room, he also talks about the affects of the occupation on children.
“Our new generation has to adopt new ways of resisting,” he says. “We have to rebuild these children, because the occupation takes away their childhood. They also need to understand the political issues. They need political awareness: because the Israeli [military] still invades here every night – and people are still being killed.”