Friends of Hebron have had a long relationship with the Shuhada St kindergarten, starting in 2013 when funds were raised to rehabilitate a building into a school. Friends of Hebron covered the remuneration of three teachers from 2014 – 2018, and in 2019 the Hebron Municipality committed to funding teacher salaries.
Since 2009 Friends of Hebron have worked in partnership with a number of non-government organisations to raise funds for essential educational facilities in the South Hebron Hills. From 2009 – 2012 we successfully assisted the communities of Umm Al Khair and Khasam Al Daraj to build kindergarten facilities. With these two schools up and running, a third kindergarten project was identified in the Tel Rumeida neighbourhood, located in the Old City of Hebron.
After extensive consultation with the community, a house was found whose owners expressed the desire and commitment to donate the house to be used as a kindergarten. The building, which had been rendered uninhabitable by the occupation, was a small house with 2 rooms, now repaired, painted and made secure.
Challenges
There are huge psychological pressure on the children of the area due to the presence of Israeli settlers and the extensive presence of Israeli soldiers providing protection for them. Physical attacks on the Palestinian residents of the neighbourhood are widely reported.
This area is under Israeli military security and around 1500 soldiers are stationed in this enclosed part of the city to protect around 500 settlers that live in the four settlements established in the Old City. Another estimated 7400 settlers are in the settlement of Kiryat Arba, only 10 minutes walk away from Tel Rumeida.
There is a lack of any recreational facilities for the children of Tel Rumeida where they can release some of the stresses and pressures they face in the neighbourhood.
The non-presence of a kindergarten in the neighbourhood forces the parents to seek kindergarten education outside of the neighbourhood. Doing so is usually done at a fee that is financially cumbersome to the families to the point that they feel obligated to withdraw their children from kindergarten education.
The refugee population living in the neighbourhood is particularly vulnerable due to the reduction of social services by UNRWA and the cutting-off of aid supplied to the residents of the Old City by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). This monthly food parcel that was provided by the ICRC since 2002 was cut off due to budget limitations. According to in-field surveys, there are at least 283 refugees living in and around Tel Rumeida neighbourhood of which 39 are children of kindergarten age.
Renovations
Despite the harassment and attacks on the Palestinian population that arises from this situation, the community has insisted that education remains a priority for the children in the closed part of the city.
Renovations for the Tel Rumeida kindergarten began in August 2013, with the funds raised at the Leichhardt Friends of Hebron trivia quiz in February contributing to the project. With the ongoing commitment from volunteers working on the project the funds have been directed to providing building materials to rehabilitate the building.
From 2014, funds raised through the Leichhardt Friends of Hebron trivia quiz and the Refugee Week Festival of Friendship were ear marked specifically for remunerating teachers at the school. The Tel Rumeida kindergarten project will target employment opportunities for women in the Old City of Hebron. Our ongoing fundraising will be utilised directly to keep teachers trained and to pay regular wages.
Attacks on the School
In 2011, when settlers tried to burn down the Cordoba school in Hebron, the principal installed video cameras on the premises to monitor security. By the first week of February, 2012 the school had been broken into, the wire mesh on the windows cut through and the cameras stolen from the school. The perpetrators were masked, so no arrests were made. There are military cameras on the settlement directly across from the school, military watch towers monitoring the area around the school, an army outpost based directly in front of the school and an army rest post (built in front of a confiscated Palestinian house) down the street. Yet no one has been apprehended for the crime. Two months later the Israeli police removed a camera that a Palestinian family, living opposite a settlement, had put on their balcony for their own protection.
Inter-
national Presence
There were four international observer groups that monitor the schools in the Old City of Hebron. The Christian Peacemaker Teams, the Ecumenical Accompaniment Program in Palestine and Israel, International Solidarity Movement and until 2019 Temporary International Presence in Hebron. They are stationed outside the schools to provide safe passage for school students who must pass through military checkpoints and are at risk of attacks by settlers. These observer groups will be stationed near the kindergarten to give these young children some peace of mind as they negotiate their way to school with daily and ongoing harassment.
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