Oh, my home!

Would you like to meet other families somewhere in the world and share with them what ‘home’ means to you?

One thing that’s happened worldwide during the corona pandemic is that (love it or loathe it!), we’ve all been pushed to spend more time at home; to notice and appreciate the things that really matter to us. ‘Oh my home!’ is an opportunity for people (of any age) to do Zoom ‘show and tell’ together. You could share with us all an object that represents ‘home’ for you? Maybe you’d like to show your favourite place in your home, or a picture of something that represents home? Or something else?

We did this for the first time last Sunday between families in Totnes, where I live in the UK, and families in Beit Hanoun, Gaza. There were participants there between the ages of 2 and 70 and we talked about all kinds of things: pigeons, fish, flowers, football, hills, Italian food, songs about our homes, kunnafah, backgammon, the love of our families, national anthems, and (perhaps most bizarrely) Argentinian tea!

Dina and her grandad telling us about Beit Hanoun – then and now

The moment when Lulu joined us!

Home means ‘fish and chips’

Sali and her singing family

Mark’s Backgammon board from Iraq

How to make Kunafah on a fire

What is the best Italian meal that Paul cooks?

Now we’d like to open it up to families anywhere in the world! We want to make sure that people in as many different places as possible can be involved so we’ve chosen a time which will make it possible for people in Palestine, Europe, the Americas and the Far East to take part.

So it will be every Sunday (starting on Sunday 14th March 2021) at 1pm Palestine time. This means:-

5 am (anybody already up at that time!?) in Mexico , 6 am in Ecuador, 8 am in Brazil and Chile, 11 am in Portugal and the UK, 12pm in Angola, Bosnia, Italy and Croatia, 1pm in Palestine, Finland, South Africa and Romania, 2pm in Turkey, 4pm in Pakistan, 6 pm in Indonesia, 7pm in Malaysia, 8pm in Japan, 10 pm in Australia and midnight (anybody still up at that time!?) in New Zealand .

So that everyone has a chance to speak and to be heard we’ll limit it to 6 families in total and ideally only one family from each country. The session will take a maximum of an hour. Please send us an email to info@handsupproject.org to register, telling us which Sunday you’d like to do.