In This Issue:

Karama Profiles: Meet some of our members and volunteers.

Newsletter Archive: Check out past Karama Newsletters.

Karama Member Profile

Sundus

Sundus is 13 years old and has been coming to Karama for four years...read more

Volunteer Profile

Georgina Fuller

Georgie is 23 and comes from Australia. She also has a background in child psychology... read more

Welcome to the Karama Newsletter

After a long period of silence, Karama's Newsletter is back!
Watch this space for news about our activities, fun facts about Karama and how you can get involved.

Jewellery making for women

Over the course of six weeks, our Scottish volunteer Addison taught six women how to make brooches, necklaces and bracelets with very limited resources. They also made little presents out of felt, like flowers, hearts or the Palestinian flag and even learnt how to work with goggly eyes. We are convinced that this skill will be useful in the women's future and that they continue with what they learnt in the next months.

Creative workshops with the Karama children

In the past few weeks our volunteers Addison and Pia have run great workshops teasing out our children's creativity.
Addison shared her skills as a professional jewellery maker and taught our boys and girls how to make friendship bracelets, necklaces and earrings. Thought jewellery is only for small girls and barbies? Think again! Our boys learned how to work with beads (although pink ones were off-limits) and even held needles for the first time.

Pia from the USA built on these skills to teach the children how to sew, make hairbands and felt monsters.

Pia was a very special volunteer. She is originally from Syria and speaks Arabic fluently. She was especially loved by our younger children who do not speak English that well yet and who also loved her for her masses of activities, from sewing to painting to sharade to treasure hunts. The first thing all other volunteers and Karama's director heard every morning was "Wen Pia? Bidy Pia!" (Meaning 'where is Pia? I want Pia!'). When Pia arrived at Karama, she always needed to do a little chicken dance to shake off the cluster of children hanging from her back, arms and legs. She went back to her little daughter in the US last week. Karama wishes her all the best and sends a big thank you!

The children have started to work on a large scale embroidery project with our volunteer Georgie. Together, the boys and girls have chosen to embroider a social message; designing a picture of Palestine which incorporates the colours of the Palestinian flag. This project aims to foster creativity, co-operation and team-work as well as develop useful sewing skills

Badminton

With the purchase of some badminton racquets and shuttlecocks, the older children have been learning the foundation rules of badminton. This includes learning to underarm serve and practicing their forehand and backhand returns.

Remedial English

For an hour each day, children requiring extra help with their English language skills have been participating in focused classes. The classes are structured around fun exercises that are relevant to the children's everyday lives. A good level of English will be useful for the children when they travel to Denmark in 2012.

Gardening

Our Karama garden is in full bloom. The rose bushes are sparkling in yellow, pink and red and it is always a challenge to keep the children away from climbing the Askadinya trees to eat the ripe yellow fruits. A great opportunity to plant

Volunteers

Three international volunteers currently support our work: Georgie from Australia brings our children’s creativity to the fore with drawing, painting, glueing and sewing activities. Her friend Kesaya from Australia helps in getting funding for Karama in addition to running English classes. Paladia from Germany helps in the general running of Karama, writes newsletters and updates the website, organises the volunteer activities and gives English classes to teenaged girls. Check out our volunteer interviews here.