For the second consecutive year EJE is proud to present the 2010 wooden games project organized with the support of the French association “Secours Catholique”. This project will allow 12 Palestinian animators and volunteers to be trained by EJE Team for three days in the manufacture of wooden games. Then they will be able to transmit their knowledge to the Palestinian children through a six-day training during which 25 children from different refugees camps will build games by themselves.
The games will be subsequently used in play and activity centers and partners of EJE during the August summer camp: the “Summer Fun Games”.
Among the games who will be created, we will find games coming from all over the world such as “Hyene” a Sudanese strategy 
game, “Yote” an African thinking game, but also “Le Pique-Nique” which is a pedagogical French game to learn about duty and rights…
We believe that the participating children will benefit a lot from this workshop.
Children will bring the games they built to their Play and activity centers. This principle will allow children to discover that they can be useful for their community and enhances their self-esteem. Games are also creators of social bound between the generations. They can be borrowed by families so they can also initiate new dialogue at home.
In comparison with 2009 training, the 2010 workshop innovates in many aspects. The games are all new. Also the participating animators will train parents to use these games. Finally, children of the workshop will teach to the other children in their center how to play these different games. As such, EJE hopes strengthening the involvement of parents in the life of the centers, but also teaching children to share their experiences, build solidarity between them and be actors in their own social and cultural development.
These workshops are an open window to the world because, besides the creation of Palestinian traditional games, they will manufacture games from different countries of the world. This project is also a symbol of international coordination because 4 employees of EJE were trained in France last year by the Association “Peuple et Culture” in the manufacture of wooden games. They were then able to train 18 Palestinian animators in the building of wooden games. French volunteers will also participate to the workshop. We would like also to thank the “Secours Catholique Francais” for its support for this project.
