Support us

Donations

From abroad, donations via  bank transfer to the following details:

Jordan National Bank

Main Branch – Amman – Jordan

SWIFT JONBJOAXXX

Correspondent DEUTSCH BANK Account 100 954 02530000 EURO GERMANY

To Jordan National Bank 43 PLC Bethlehem Branch 844

EJE Account 411267

From France only, donations via check are possible through VDE. For all information check:
info@ejepal.org

Become Volunteer

Volunteers come from a period between 1 to 3 months, for specific missions in the play and animation centers. Mostly working with children and depending on their skills and wishes, volunteers can be also asked to contribute to office work, as well in our training sessions.

Some volunteers also help us from their home country

  • on long term missions such as on communication and networking in their own country
  • on specific missions

If you wish to apply to become volunteer, please fill up the volunteer application form and send it back to us to info@ejepal.org

VOLUNTEER APPLICATION FORM

Volunteers’ words

Seppe: “If I could turn back time, I’d do it immediately again!”

2011-06-09

For a long time I had been thinking about going to Palestine and do some volunteer work for a local NGO. At the end of 2009 I took an airplane to Jordan for a trip to the Middle-East that had the goal of ending the travel with finding an organization to return to in the Palestinian Territories.

After a few days of searching the area and getting some information I had a good conversation with Jacques Neno, the coordinator of “EJE”, about all the kinds of activities the organization organizes for the children of the refugee-camps. I also spoke to some volunteers that were still active at that time, to Shireen who spoke with so much passion about the political problems in the country and Nidal showed me his house in the Al Aroub-refugee camp. My decision was quickly made, with these people I’d like to spend more time.

In September 2010 I came back to Bethlehem and was happily surprised when I could decide for myself which things I would be doing for the few next months, off course everything had to be in fitting in the organization but from all the possibilities I could do everything that I wanted to do .

As main occupation I wanted to make some educational games for the refugee camps and with the help of Shireen and Bashir I managed to create a lot of little tests, activities, games that will give the children a fun and educational free time when they finish school in the afternoon. After a long period of constructing a toolbox I was able to explain all the games to the animators in the Al-Aroub camp.

When I heard that the organization wanted to make a youth hostel I started to engage myself in the start up of this hostel. Through some little difficulties the hostel wasn’t able to start yet but when everything will be running as normal the hostel will be able to start really quickly. All contacts have been made to get this thing running as soon as possible.

The school “Le Petit Prince” was going every Wednesday to the swimming pool and the teachers told me that they could need an extra hand with this. I used to be a swimming teacher and after a few weeks I found myself in the pool as a swimming teacher for the children of 6 and 7 years old, a wonderful experience. By learning to know the children a lot better I became more and more familiar to the classes. Like this I started joining them on their field trips, trying my educational games in the classes,… As a volunteer I was not really a teacher of them but more some sort of distant family that runs in to their classroom every now and then.

As EJE also organizes big events and in these I got the possibility to support the Play Festival in Ramallah and the exibition of the “Re-imagining Palestine” project. I met so many interesting people in these projects.

During my 6 months in Palestine I had the honor to learn so much about the country, the culture and political situation in Palestine. I met so many nice and interesting people, learned so many new skills that I can use in my personal life and back I Belgium.

If I could turn back time, I’d do it immediately again!

Seppe

“Together we go further”, Palestine, August 2010

2010-11-08

«Alone we go faster, together we go further»

Leaving… We had eight months in front of us to complete everything: finding a reliable partner, an organization, define the actions we should realize together and find the necessary funding. Our destination became clearer: we get into contact with a Palestinian organization, EJE, whose mission is to run activity centers in refugee camps in the West Bank to get the children out of their mostly difficult daily life. The coordinator of the organization, himself a former scout, proposed us two actions. In the first period we would train Palestinian animators in animation techniques during a summer-camp for children. In a second period we would paint the walls of the kindergarten of the organization.

The third of August we landed in Tel Aviv in a choking heat. Finally we were in this country, a moment we had all waited for! Without waiting any longer the taxi took us to Bethlehem where we stayed while spending our days in Palestine. After a very short night we got straight into the action. The summer camp was not far from Bethlehem and about sixty children and ten animators were present. The first contact is always a bit delicate: everybody needs to get over their prejudices and there was also the language barrier. Our English got better day by day and the animators invested more and more in the training that we were proposing and the games that we were exchanging. This first week include a lot of interesting exchanges and emotions. By the sharing of experiences and spending lots of time together we bounded with the Palestinian animators and the international (mostly French) volunteers. Bit by bit we also discovered the city and the area. Living daily in this city gave us the opportunity to meet the inhabitants and taking our time to listen and learn about their situation.

The second part of our work, the wall-painting of the “Petit Prince” of Saint Exupéry in the kindergarten who is having the same name, would leave us more time to visit more of the country.

The school became partly covered with paintings taken from the book “le Petit Prince”. The heat became day by day more important, without a cloud. Our stay was already coming to an end. We used our last days to go to the Dead Sea and experienced the incredible feeling of floating on the water!!!

Leaving is never easy, especially after so many encounters and such an impressive discovery of the country, but we needed to go back to rainy Paris. This three weeks in Palestine have changed us for ever; and we all came back as better persons.

We left without knowing what we were going to find, we all came back as richer persons by all the meetings, the friendship and the discovery of a country.

The team of scouts and guides of France

Un unforgettable journey to the sea

2010-11-04

We are 4 young French people: Camille, Sarah, Quentin and Jean, all of us are club members of Caritas, in association with the Secours Catholique. We organized five days of summer camp which took place from July 21 to 26 in Bethlehem. The camp offered many activities in collaboration with the Palestinian animators within the framework of cultural exchange. Our focus project was the “sea project”, which aims at allowing the children to see the sea.

For the big day, we joined the EJE team on Sunday, July 25 at 8:30 and then we are headed with the children to Manger square where we expected the bus, as well as the Palestinian animators from Jerusalem who are allowed to move freely within Israel. We reached Jaffa after 1h30 journey during which there were many shouts of amazement from the children at every passage o passage of a tunnel or at the sight of an airplane, train and finally at the sea, We finally reached the beach with the kids and various beach toys. The children quickly rushed to the water: the more courageous went further than the facilitators while the less adventurous paddled near the shore or made sandcastles. Children left the water only after 3 hours of swimming. After a shower with clean water, we headed to a playground for a picnic with shawarma and children rushed to the games.

At 2 pm, we had to unfortunately leave the beach to allow children to discover Jerusalem, most of them for the first time. We finally returned to Bethlehem at 16:30.

We have a special thought for all the EJE Palestinian animators who worked with us during these 5 days and could not accompany us for lack of authorization from the Israeli army. We especially thank for their hospitality and assistance during activities.

This day was really moving and we will never forget the happiness of these children!

The best way to spend my 2009 summer!

2010-03-02

My 3-month internship at EJE was definitely the best way to spend my summer in 2009!

It’s hard to put into words how this time has been valuable in so many aspects.

Through my task of conducting an evaluation on the children’s well-being I met many different kinds of people. Children, animators, teachers, social worker, UN representatives, parents, local and international volunteers and not to forget the taxi drivers… the list is far too long! Many of these encounters became unique moments giving insight into the real Palestine and its hospitality that I’ll never forget. Very helpful was the continuous support by EJE’s team, doing a great job to make you a part of it in a trice. This happened through all kind of work-related assistance as well as growing friendships off the job.

All in all, it has been a striking experience to work in this context, to live with the people and to feel the actual heartbeat of a region that regularly covers the headlines of newspapers all around the globe!

Stephen (Germany)

A experience which had allowed me to develop my skills

2010-02-16

Being a student at the Free University of Brussels, I had to complete an internship to validate my degree. I would like to thank the whole team of EJE for welcoming me. Through them I had the chance to discover for 6 months this beautiful country with a history that is more than painful

During my stay, I had the opportunity to tackle different tasks that allowed me to broaden my skills, and so my professional horizon. Despite some difficult moments and doubts, the team has remained united to move forward. I will particularly remember the organization of the play festival in late October 2009, at the square of the Nativity in Bethlehem, in which each put some personal effort to make it a successful event.

Thank you to all the children, animators and managers of the play and animation centers, and more generally to all Palestinians for their great hospitality, which enabled me to better understand their daily lives and their struggle for their rights.

Hoping to come back here very soon, I wish a lot of courage to all those who have “shaped”me , and allowed me to grow up a little more, here in Palestine.

Pierre