In This Issue:

what is Karama up to: Have a look at Karama's forthcoming projects.

News Section: Get the latest on all things Palestine.

Karama Profiles: Meet some of our members and volunteers.

Frontpage: return to the newsletter frontpage

Volunteer Profile Michael


Michael, our volunteer from the U.S., has been with Karama since the beginning of September. He is working as a coordinator for our intentional and local... read more

Welcome to the Karama Newsletter

What is up in Karama this month?

Mosaic Project

On October 24, Karama's local and international volunteers began a mosaic project at the United Nations Girls' School. The motivation for the project was to provide the students with a new activity to enliven their optional Saturday school day that would culminate in a finished piece of artwork to which all of them had contributed.

On Saturday morning, each grade came to work on the mosaic during their recess break. All of the girls, from the fourth to the ninth grade, seemed intrigued by the project. Many of them were avidly gluing the tiles down to fill in the letters and carefully choosing how to orient them, while others preferred breaking the tile into appropriately sized pieces. By the end of the first day, the letters were mostly completed, if not entirely legible.

Throughout the next two days, Karama's local volunteers, led by Ghassan Abu-Ajamia and assisted by several international volunteers, filled in the remaining background tiles and neatened up the words. By the end of the day on the 27th, the mosaic had been cut into pieces and reassembled on the wall that surrounds the girls' school. The following day the grouting was added and the project was complete. From now on it will remain on the wall of the school, welcoming both visitors and the students who created it.

Dental care activity

There is a dental hygiene problem and is underestimated. So few people know how to take proper care of their oral cavity, and it isn’t rare to see young people or children who already have rotten teeth. Troubles here are so numerous, and often so great, that dental care, like many other preventive and educational acts, are relayed to secondary status.
Karama, existing in order to provide these opportunities, recently began a program of dental hygiene education. The program targeted three problems, widely evident in the local community.

Firstly, we have explained to the children why it’s important to take care of their teeth –evict bad breath, decay, cavities, and the gum disease, gingivitis. Secondly, we distributed tooth brushes and paste, demonstrated and explained how to brush teeth efficiently. Then we all brushed together, volunteers and children. Thirdly and finally, Matthew showed concretely, with the help of a smart experiment, the necessity of take care of our teeth. The experiment reproduced what happens with our teeth over time and with bad nourishment without proper attention. That consisted of eggs, previously hardboiled and placed in different solutions: one composed of water only, one of water and sugar, one of vinegar, and an other of soda. Day after day, the children could observe the ravages that occurred over time (pure water), candy (water + sugar) and acid (vinegar), or the whole with soda.

However, the long term impact is possibly limited, since there is little chance that tooth brushing will be done regularly at home, in a familial context which isn’t favorable to continuity. To go beyond this obstacle, the project should maybe be repeated. In despite of this issue, this class has been followed by 15 children, with enthusiasm and attentive listening.



Geneva Conventions

by our volunteer Michael

The identification of war crimes is a historically new concept, but one that has been the subject of a great deal of international debate for the last two centuries. Accusations of human rights violations in the many ongoing conflict around the world are found commonly in the media, illiciting denial from some and censure from others. Often, the violations are, themselves, justification for armed intervention. The Geneva Conventions are the most quoted authority on the subject, and consist of a series of international agreements culminating in the fourth, and final, convention in 1949. It was this fourth one that, aside from reaffirming the previous three, established the international consensus on the rights of non-combatants during times of war and territorial occupation. It is this most modern convention that governs directly the actions and policies of Israel in its occupation of the Palestinian territories...read more

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