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Friend's Play Center Am 'ari Camp Ramallah
 In
the early seventies of the last century Ramallah Friends Meeting
started a play center inside the Am 'Ary Palestinian refugee camp
with the help of among others American and Swiss Friends, on a small
piece of land made available by the UNRWA (the United Nations organization
that takes care of the Palestinian refugees). The camp is situated
in the outskirts of Ramallah along the road from Jerusalem to Ramallah,
near the well-known and notorious (because of the many riots and
clashes with the Israelies) and much bigger Kalandia Camp. The Am
'Ari camp is is existence since 1948 and the number of inhabitants
has grown to about 10.000.
Friends Play Center is the only kindergarten inside
the camp run by religious organisations. There are some play centers
in Ramallah (e.g. by the Lutherans) but there a school fee has to
be paid, whereas at the Friends Play Center parents pay something
according to their financial possibilities, or nothing at all. Practically
it is almost impossible for the camp children to go to school in
Ramallah, not because of the distance but they hardly ever leave
the camp.
The purpose of the Play Center is to offer fifty 5-year-old children,
during the year before they start elementary school, a place where
they can experience the peace, love and attention which cannot be
found in the overcrowded slums in the camp and within their own
families. The atmosphere inside the camp is always full of tension
and frustration caused by the overcrowdedness, unemployment and
hopelessness of the situation, not to mention the fights, shootings
and killings during riots.
The children are carefully selected (there are always
more applications than places) from families that never before had
a child in the Play Center; sometimes children are accepted when
there is an emergency situation in the family (like some time ago
the twins who were accepted because of their sick mother), or a
child with a physical handicap. Peace education, love and tolerance
are essential ingredients of the "curriculum" of the Play
Center. Parents know that this belongs to the Quaker attitude in
life. The two teachers are Muslims. One of them has been working
with the Play Center for many years and is herself living inside
the camp.
 There
is a small Board, consisting of members of Ramallah Friends Meeting
but the co-ordination and daily management are in the hands of Violet
Zarou since her retirement, and she also does the bookkeeping and
'fundraising", for which she receives a small financial compensation.
Almost every day she is present in the Play Center (walking from
her home to the camp along small roads whenever there is unrest
in Ramallah).
The income of the Play Center consists of donations
and contributions from Friends in the US, Great Britain, Switzerland,
the Netherlands and some other countries or private persons. Most
donations are once-only which makes it difficult to prepare a reliable
budget. Therefore the Service Committee of Switzerland YM and the
Dutch Quaker Hulpfonds decided years ago to contribute a fixed annual
donation.
For many years UNRWA took care of one daily meal
for the children, but they stopped doing that some years ago. At
present the children get a snack or a small meal with a cup of milk
if there is enough money for it. Almost all the children come from
very needy families, due to mass unemployment, and some come to
school without having had breakfast. Moreover, the food situation
has deteriorated very much during the last year and many Palestinian
children are undernourished. There is no connection with the Friends
Boy's and Girl's Schools.
The Play Center is a very simple building, consisting
of one big room, divided into some small areas by low walls. There
is a small kitchen, two simple toilets and a playground surrounded
by high concrete walls with barbed wire on top. There are some swings,
seesaws, a climbing frame, sandbox.
Violet Zarou reported last year that UNWRA wants
to extend its girls' school next to the Play Center and needs the
Play Center plot. They promised to build a new play center in another
area inside the camp. When and where this will be is unknown at
this moment.
History of the SYM's involvement with the Play
Center
It was in 1972 that European Quakers began discussing
the possibility of undertaking a new project. It had been several
years since a first project in Kabylei, Algeria, had been taken
over the local people. The new project was to be incorporate the
following criteria:
- It should be a project involving children,
- in education,
- in an area of the world where there was an obvious
need,
- and where there was a local Quaker Meeting.
A project in the middle east would fulfill these
criteria. It was decided to approach the Meeting in Ramallah if
they were willing to cooperate on such a project.
It was decided that a play center for 3 to 6 year
children would be particularly welcome since it was felt that by
supporting creative activities for children of this age group import
groundwork would be laid for the development of a healthy psychological
development in later years.
After careful deliberations and consultations it
was decided at the Annual Meeting of the European Section of FWCC
at Easter, 1974, that the next project of the Service Committee
of the then European and Near East Section (now renames European
and Middle East Section) would be a play center in the Am'ary Refugee
Camp near Ramallah. This project would be under the umbrella organization
of the UNRWA. From the very beginning the project was organized
in cooperation with the local Quaker Meeting. A Service Committee
was organized, consisting of Swiss Quakers, Amélie Strub,
Lisa Berg, Madelaine Jéquier, Fred Kocher, Eva Trepp and
Eleonore Dubois to manage the project from the European side.
A similar committee was organized in Ramallah. This
included Viotel Zaru, who is still the principle supporter of the
Play Center.
On 11 January 1975 the Am'ary Play Center officially
opened its doors. A young American couple from the Holy Land Mission
of the Church of the Brethren were chosen as teachers. The cooperation
with the Brethren would continue when this couple left and a other
couples from the Holy Land Mission took over as teachers.
It was decided to open a second center. Since it
was impossible to expand the center in the Am'ary Refugee Camp,
it was decided to renovate an area connected to the Meeting House
in Ramallah to be used as a center. This involved quite extensive
costs and European Quakers agreed to contribute to the renovation.
The Friends' Play Center was opened in September 1978.
In the meantime a program for mothers had been started.
This integrated mainly illiterate women from the camp and their
four year old children. The teacher visited each woman weekly and
presented to her a lesson which the mother would work on together
with her child during the coming week. The program met with immediate
success. It strengthened the tie between mother and child and involved
the mother directly in the education of their children and raised
the self esteem of the women.
Despite the success of the Play Center and the Mother's
Program and the increasing tension in the area and the resulting
need for projects such as this, it became increasingly difficult
to raise funds among European Friends. A fund was organized in 1982
along with a plan whereby the financial responsibility of European
Quakers would eventually be taken over by the local Friends Meeting
in Ramallah. With this the official responsibilities of the Swiss
Committees was ended in 1985, but the connection to the Play Center
remains strong within the Switzerland Yearly Meeting.
It is impossible to run such a center without some
guaranteed fixed income. Because of our commitment to the Play Center,
SYM and the Dutch Quaker Hulpfonds have both agreed to a minimal,
yearly contributions. From Switzerland a part comes from the central
funds and a large portion is guaranteed by the local groups. Contributions
from the groups sould be sent to the SYM treasurer so that we can
be sure that we have fulfilled our agreed yearly support.
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