The Hands Up Project
… is a charity trust which, through its network of volunteers, connects children around the world with young people in Palestine. By means of online interaction, drama and storytelling activities, it enables the use of creativity and self-expression to promote mutual understanding, personal growth, and the development of English language skills.
Updates from HUP teachers and students inside Gaza…
"I just wanna go home. I just wanna live like any human being in this world. Please help me."
Displaced and separated from her family, Ghazal hasn't seen her mother for 140 days. This is the message she sent on the eve of her 16th birthday.
“I've no shelter. I'm supposed to make a tent and live in it and face the cold at night and the heat of the day while the rest of the world lives in luxury.”
“I have no name yet. I live in darkness which I think it's much more better than the light you live in..”
“Here in Rafah, things are going really hard. Just a few days ago they started doing massacres.”
“When this war ends…she will be strong enough to get through this and build Gaza again”.
"In this play we learned the importance of love and unity, and that division is nothing but loss and destruction."
"They also have another classification - a day when there is not a lot of bombing, when to some extent it's quiet, that's a good day."
"I really believe that there should be some doors, some gates especially for women and children that should always be open"
"Is it true that this great world, with all its countries, cannot stop the fire in Gaza strip?"
We lost everything in the blink of an eye. We suffered for days and we are still suffering, but the world can't hear us anymore. Here is Gaza.
I think it's time for the international community to move and stop this war as fast as they can.
The play I can is an extraordinary expression of self-realization against all the odds. Basem, who co-wrote and starred in it as a young boy, contacted us yesterday.
Ask yourself what kind of a world we live in, where the responsibility to tell us how to live falls on a 9 year old girl in Gaza.
Eyes are for looking and seeing sun
Tongues are for greeting and saying fun
Legs are for walking slowly and also run
Hands are for shaking with friends not for shooting gun
by Fatema Saidam, 2014 - 2023
Rest in peace