Some good news... After almost five months off school, children in Gaza are going back to their classes tomorrow. There's going to be a period of revision to catch up on everything that they've missed during lockdown and then the regular semester will start again at the end of August.

This weeks post is by long term HUP volunteer and drama specialist in Gaza, Haneen Khaled. Over to you Haneen....

This week we have a post from one of the latest people to join the Hands Up Project's ever expanding team of volunteers around the world - Anya Shaw. Over to you Anya....

The late lamented Simon Greenall, as well as being one of the authors of English for Palestine, was a huge supporter of ELT in general in Palestine, and in particular of The Hands Up Project.

This week's post is by Becca Young of Virginia, USA. She's been a HUP volunteer since July 2019 and currently does a Facebook live storytelling event at 5pm Palestine time every Tuesday.

This week we have a post from Sue Piper. Sue's been volunteering with Hands Up for two months now and does a wonderful Facebook live storytelling session for younger kids at 10 am Palestine time every Wednesday. Over to you Sue!

'When people are aligned to their purpose, when the gap between values and behaviours closes, what people experience is a stream of ease' (Lewin 2000)

Last week we published the names of the 18 winning plays of this year's remote theatre competition. This week we're publishing this very moving piece by Ana Begovic, one of the 70 judges who had the unenviable task of having to choose her favourite plays.

After much deliberation and extremely difficult decisions by the panel of over 70 judges from around the world, we are very proud to announce the 18 winners (listed alphabetically) of the 2020 Hands Up Project remote theatre competition. We would like to offer our huge congratulations to them all.

So finally in the midst of a world crisis, and after much deliberation and agonising decisions by the judges from around the world we are almost ready to announce the 18 winning plays of the 2019/2020 Hands Up Project Playwriting competition.

There's no doubt that the worldwide Covid-19 pandemic has thrown education around the world into chaos. According to UNESCO, 85% of the world's learners are not going to school right now. This means more than one and a half billion children are stuck at home!But as we know, out of chaos there can sometimes arise incredible creativity, especially where Palestine is concerned.

For anyone who missed last Saturday's Facebook live session about the history, the present and the future of the Hands Up Project.

This post is by Haneen Jadalla, teacher at Asma Prep girls UNRWA school, Gaza

Because of schools being closed in Palestine we can't do any of our regular link HUP ups via zoom so, until the situation changes, we're doing 3 Facebook live sessions a day from our Facebook page

The sessions are for Palestinian kids and they can access them from their own homes while they can't go to school. Here's the timetable.