The Bard Palestinian Connection (formerly the Bard Palestinian Youth Initiative) is involved in the building of civil society in the West Bank. Through education, cultural and exchange programs, sports and literacy camps, the building of children's libraries, and hands on service and construction projects, Bard students and staff contribute to the creation of a viable and sustainable Palestinian state.
Two years ago Mujahed Sarsur, a Palestinian student studying at Bard, came through my door and said, "I need to help my people, I want to start a TLS project." The Trustee Leader Scholar program supports students who design and run civic engagement projects based on their own interests. There are currently 35 TLS projects, ranging in scope from modest local ESL programs to summer intensives for hundreds of children in New Orleans. TLS administrators work closely with the Bard students, but the students have fundamental ownership of their projects. Our mission is to put capable, fearless citizens into the world capable of starting their own non-profit organizations.
In 2009, Mujahed and his co-director spent a month in Mujahed's home village of Mas'ha teaching and working with teenagers. They ran an intensive writing program based on the work of Bard's nationally known Writing and Thinking Institute. The workshops encouraged self expression in a culture that often discourages self expression. Mujahed also arranged -- with great tenacity -- to take the 15 Palestinians to Yad Vashem, the Holocaust museum in Jerusalem. This was the first visit by a Palestinian educational group in the history of the museum, and was reported widely in the Israeli press.
The BPC quickly expanded following the successful first summer. In 2010, twenty Bard students -- both men and women -- traveled to Mas'ha. They ran summer educational camps for girls and boys, taught English classes to adults, took cultural trips, including another trip to Yad Vashem, organized a huge children's festival, and built the first children's library in the West Bank. The library ribbon was cut by the Governor of the region and the US Cultural Attache in Israel.
In summer 2011, the Village Council of Mas'ha will send twelve teenagers to Bard for a 2-week English language and cultural immersion program. This exchange program will be run entirely by Bard students, with the backing and support of the college. Twenty Bard students will then return to Mas'ha to run the summer children's camps and build another library in a neighboring village.
In the future, TLS students and the college intend to develop a substantial working relationship with the village of Mas'ha that involves widespread support for the building of civil society. This includes construction and clean up projects, English classes for adults, music exchange programs and general cultural exchange involving everyone in the village.
Bard students have learned to create a working organization, speak rudimentary Arabic, run summer camps in foreign countries, lead cultural trips to controversial museums, arrange international travel, create and run self-expression workshops, negotiate tense border crossings, raise funds, develop websites and media, document complex work, create respectful working relationships across cultural lines, especially lines that traditionally have tension in them.
The effect of this project on the village of Mas'ha is incalculable. For 20 American teenagers to show up for a month and work non-stop day and night for the betterment of the village children, clearly has had a profound impact. Mas'ha is a small village. There are no movie theaters or malls there. The Bard students bring life and ambition and books and games and theater and music with them. They bring idealism and the need for self-expression. It is a profound thing that the students are doing.
Hopefully transforming the village of Mas'ha will influence people in the West Bank and in America, and move people toward mutual cooperation.
The BPC is dedicated to the building of civil society in the West Bank. Bard students study the history and culture of the Middle East. Many of them study Arabic. We have traveled to Washington DC and met with leaders from all the constituencies involved: Americans, Palestinians, Israeli's , and both Muslim and Jewish organizers. We have come to the conclusion, and this has been corroborated by many, especially the Palestinians, that creating a strong, working Palestinian civil society is the best way to resolve the challenges of the region.
We are working closely with the Village Council in Mas'ha to create programs that are mutually beneficial to Bard and to the Palestinians. These are all based in education and cultural exchange. In the spring of 2011 a small representative group from the Village Council will visit Bard and our town, Red Hook, NY. We will establish formal relationships between Bard-Red Hook-Mas'ha, with the hope of including local area residents in BPC programs. This might take the form of homestays for Palestinians visiting in the future, and local teenagers from Red Hook participating in Mas'ha.
The college, through its students, intends to raise money for and help build a children's library in every West Bank town, one at a time. Of course this will require the development of partnerships with each village, and the development of long term funding sources.
--Run summer camps in Mas'ha for over 200 Palestinian children. --Taught groundbreaking self-expression workshops to many Palestinian teenagers, both young men and young women (35 over the past two summers) --Built the first children's library in the West Bank --Led the first Palestinian educational trip to Yad Vashem, the Holocaust museum in Jerusalem, 2009 --Returned to Yad Vashem with young Palestinian men and women in 2010 --Established close ties between the college and the Village Council for the purpose of developing long term educational exchange --Changing the way people in Mas'ha think about Americans --Changing the way children in Mas'ha approach self-expression --Creating a dialogue between a rural American town and a small Palestinian village, which has the effect of breaking down the incredible distrust people have across these lines --Hosted a ribbon cutting for the children's library in Mas'ha that included the Governor of the region and the US Cultural Attache to Israel (included a fast-breaking meal during Ramadan, prepared by the Village in honor of the new library)
The Bard Palestinian Youth Initiative (BPYI) is the only entirely student-run Palestinian engagement program in the United States.
In 2009, the BPYI sponsored and arranged for the first Palestinian educational group to visit Yad Vashem, the Holocaust museum in Jerusalem.
In 2010, the BPYI working hand in hand with village craftsmen built the first children’s library in Palestine. The ribbon on the new library was cut jointly by the Governor of Salfit Province and the American Consulate.
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