Thanks to EPF PIN member Lynn W. Huber for this report.
We Are Not Numbers (WANN) is an international organization which matches up professional, published English writers with Gazan youth interested in writing in English themselves.
Having been to Palestine twice, and having done writing and teaching about the ever-increasing horrors of life there, the moment I learned about the organization, I volunteered.
The staff interview potential mentors and orient us fully as to what is expected. I have found it an exciting and growth-producing experience, handled in a professional and engaging way.
An irony is that were I physically present in Israel/Palestine I would not even be able to enter Gaza—which is for all intents and purposes held hostage by the Israeli government. But with this program I can do something! I can both learn and teach, and even make a slight positive difference in the isolation of Gazans. And with the blessing of ZOOM I can see and hear my mentées face to face.
One of them, Alalami Hassan (who gave me permission to use his name), is a medical student, and was my first mentée. He wrote a fascinating essay on (of all things) donkey carts. They are used for many purposes, in part necessitated by the partial blockade on gasoline imposed by Israel. Photos and incidents from his essay (not to mention a whole lot more he taught me during our sessions) almost made me feel as if I had actually been there.
Our relationship began during the last bombing war against Gaza, and our calls were often interrupted by the electricity being cut off. It surely gave me a close-up sense of what Gazans were enduring. And I was on line with my friend when part of a building next door to him was blown away, and the resulting rubble covered a group of children caught in the crush.
It is so easy for us to sit in our termperature-controlled, bomb-free homes, read a headline, say a compassionate “tsk, tsk”, and flip the page. Being present, even in this strange way, made it come alive for me and be utterly real.
If you are intrigued to know more (and perhaps even to volunteer for the program), have a peek at some of the essays on the WANN website and contact them there.
