Print Page

Seminar with Ibrahim Issa

Peace Direct would like to invite you to a seminar with Ibrahim Issa, coordinator (headmaster) for the Hope Flowers School in Bethlehem, West Bank (www.hope-flowers.org), at 2pm on Tuesday 25th October, in Development House, 56-64 Leonard Street, London, EC2A 4JX.

Ibrahim will be talking for an hour taking questions as he goes; in this respect this will be an informal, discursive seminar.

There are limited places available, and they are filling up fast, so if you are interested or would like more information, please contact Cressida Langlands soon on 0845 456 9714 to book your place.

The event is free; donations made to the school at the end of the event are very welcomed.

The Hope Flowers School


This is a rather special school for children aged 5-13, specialising in peace and democracy education. Thechildren learn how to work with difficult situations, community cooperation, meetings, decisions and making their way in a crisis-ridden world. They have a trauma recovery psychological programme for children and their families, incorporating counselling, therapies and extra-curricular activities in performing arts, agriculture and crafts.

Ibrahim's brief visit to UK, embracing Somerset, Birmingham and London, is mainly for contact-building in three areas:

· the school seeks financial support

· volunteers (to visit for 1-3 months)

· educational contacts (teacher dialogues, pen pals for the children and schools exchanges).

He is an unassuming and charming man who is nevertheless very experienced in dealing with real-life conflict situations, their community side-effects and, most important, workable remedies. Not one of their young graduates has engaged in violence: this is the primary proof of the value of the school's work.

The school was founded in 1984 by Ibrahim's father Hussein (died in 2000), who grew up in a refugee camp in Bethlehem. It teaches the standard Palestinian curriculum in the mornings and extra-curricular activities for children, families and ex-students in the afternoons and evenings, as well as hosting community meetings with a democracy-training orientation. This school is, without really knowing it, a world leader in such work - necessity plus applied vision have made it so. It faces big challenges too - for example, the Israeli security wall is to be built on the edge of the school's property, and the cafeteria is to be demolished to make way for it.