I am human – also in the occupied Palestine: The Excellence Center organised an English language course in June called “I am human” which covered issues such as life in Palestine, human rights in Palestine and in the world. These lessons were mainly based on oral exercises which gave the students the opportunity to practise their vocal skills. Sometimes the students struggled to voice their opinions but by the help of dictionries we managed to understand each other well. These workshops were attended by about 5 Palestinians every time.

In the first workshop we talked about life in Palestine and how the occupation affects the lives of the Palestinians. In the beginning the concept of human rights felt a little bit too abstract for the students but in the end we had had such a fruitful conversation about education, health, freedom of movement (or the lack of) and Gaza. Every student participated in the conversation, some more and some less. The students wrote about their life in Palestine as their homework to strengthen their writing skills as well. All of us, both the students and the teacher, an international volunteer from Finland, learnt a lot and enjoyed the lesson.

During the second lesson we used pictures as a tool to discuss human rights in Palestine. There was a picture of Palestinian refugee camps and it prompted the students to talk about Palestinian refugees, life in a refugee camp, and so on. We learned refugee camps are overcrowded and the water is polluted but the people are friendly, and scenery is beautiful. Then a picture of the loss of land in Palestine was shown and in addition to disappearing Palestinian land we talked about settlements, for example.

We concentrated on the role of international organizations such as the United Nations and the Red Cross or the Red Crescent in the third lesson. First, we watched a video about human rights in the world and also talked about the role of the United Nations in Palestine and how it helped in the refugee camps by building schools. The students were satisfied with the work the United Nations was doing in Palestine. Then it was a good way to continue this lesson by watching a video about Red Cross/Red Crescent. We learned the Red Crescent has Palestinian volunteers, such as one of the students, who give first aid to people in need in Palestine.

There was a plan to read the news in the fourth lesson, but it didn’t work since the level of the students’ English wasn’t suitable for this activity. So, we talked about human rights more instead. We also studied grammar and had a successful lesson in the end. The students came up with sentences related to human rights and wrote them on the board. Then we corrected the grammar mistakes together.

Since we had focused on human rights in Palestine in the previous sessions it was finally time to cover human rights issues in the world during the final lesson. We talked about children’s rights in Africa and other developing countries, freedom of speech, democracy, and dictatorship and, finally, we briefly covered disability rights. In the end, we all agreed we had enjoyed these workshops a lot and learnt from each other.