The Work Brigade 2010 has returned from Ein el-Hilweh Camp

 

On Thursday 22 July the italian members of Brigade 2010 of Sumud started from Rome-Fiumicino.

They arrived in the morning of 23rd in Beirut airport, where they met our friend of Nashet association. Together they went to Saida, and then entered in Ein el-Hilweh Camp, where they have been reacheded the day after by our volunteers coming from Austria and Germany.

The brigade came back to Europe on Friday 6 August.

Look at the Reports and Pictures from the labor camp in Ein el-Hilweh.

You can also read all the reports and messages sent by our volunteers on the Sumud Blog and see all the pictures shoot by our Brigade on Sumud PhotoGallery (still uploading).

 

In the past August a brigade organized by Sumud and composed by around twenty European girls and boys, went to the Palestinian refugee camp of Ein al-Hilweh, in southern Lebanon. We were guests, invited by the Nashet association, formed by young Palestinians and Lebanese. This camp represents a symbol for the whole Palestinian people, because it was always on the forefront of the liberation struggle, a stronghold of resistance against Israel.

It wasn’t a holiday, we were a work brigade. In three weeks we have restored a small run-down building, located right at the main entrance of the camp, which is guarded, just like a concentration camp, by Lebanese army. Three weeks in which, working together with our friends of Nashet, we restored the building and provided it with the essential facilities, so that it can become a multipurpose community center, a place of interchange, memory and civil commitment, a meeting point for all the young Palestinian of the refugee camp: young people without a passport, outcasts, whose greatest dream is to return, one day, to their homeland.

Before returning home we held a small celebration. We celebrated, in an atmosphere of internationalist brotherhood, the conclusion of the first and more laborious tranche of work. There was pride on the faces of the volunteers. With the little money raised in Europe by Sumud, and thanks only to the voluntary and cooperative work of the joint brigade, we achieved a wonderful result.

Now we need to start the second phase: to furnish the center with the equipment and tools for it to finally start operate. First of all, we must furnish it with tables, chairs, some computers, a server, a good printer. We also need a couple of cameras, to be able to start a systematic video investigation on the life in the refugee camp. We wish that our social center also becomes a small but efficient media center, giving to the Palestinian youth of the camp a way to communicate with an outside world that often disregards the drama of refugees because their voices can’t go out and be heard. One of the purposes of this youth center will be precisely to connect with the world, to show the truth about the plight of millions of Palestinian refugees and explain why they have the sacred right of return to Palestine.

To start this second phase, a new work brigade will go to Ein el-Hilweh next summer. We have to compose this second brigade, so we address the most sensitive and willing young people, motivated by a sincere feeling of solidarity with the Palestinian Resistance, to join the core that has already been formed. But this second mission would be vain if we’ll not be able, before its start, to collect the funds necessary to purchase the needed tools and equipment.

The sooner we’ll provide an estimate of the minimum amount necessary. We do not want the dirty money of the governments or "humanitarian" international agencies. We do not want to depend on donors who may overnight deprive us of money because of our otherness or ask us to become like an NGO.

Support Sumud to help the Palestinian people who resist!

1. Producing a documentary on the life in the camp of Ein el-Hilweh and the work of the brigade (under the guide and teaching of a local expert)
2. Renovating second hand furnitures and/or craft new ones (under the monitoring of local craftsmen)
3. Setting up a computer network and a multimedia room

1. Video Workshop and documentary “We Want To Live!”

Within the two weeks, a group of Lebanese and Palestinian youth will have the opportunity to learn how to make one-minute movies about the daily life in and around the camp, using cameras and production software. The mixed nature of the target group will help to break the ghettoization of the camp, and to both enlarge the horizon of the camp youth on one side, and on the other side to enhance the awareness of Lebanese youth from Sidon about the life inside the camp, which is only few kilometres away.

A parallel training will be held for the Sumud international participants. Their aim will be to produce a documentary about the Sumud project.

The trainer is Arab Lotfi, a well known Lebanese film maker and political activist. She has produced several political and cultural video documentaries about the Resistance and the cultural life in Palestine, Lebanon and other Arab countries. Her film "A Short Visit" (1999) is a documentary on the daily life in Ein El-Hilewh and the Naji Ali youth centre.

Features of the Video Workshops:

• the Workshop duration will be at least one week;
• the participant number should not exceed 15 persons: if there are more participants, two workshops will be held;
• the workshop will take place in Sumud Centre in Ein El-Hilweh and in the centre of the Association of Culture and Literature in Sidon with participants from both centres;
• for the Arab youth, the workshop will be held in Arabic language and an Arabic – English translation for the international participants will be organized, while the workshop for international participant will be held in English;
• in few days, the participants will learn ways of developing ideas for short film, how to condense the ideas to short sequences, and also the techniques to use the camera;
• the short videos will be realized within the workshop time;
• on the last day, the one-minute movies will be screened at the centre in Ein-Elhilweh, during the final event of Sumud Brigade 2010;
• the documentary video of the international participants should include the final ceremony and is to be produced and screened in the centre afterwards; it will be also screened in Europe during found-raising meetings.

2. Furnishisng and equiping Sumud Centre in Ein El-Hilweh

This part of the project is the continuation of the Sumud project of 2009, and consists in furnishing the building in which the cultural centre was established during past year brigade.

International volunteers and Nashet activists (10-20 persons, not participating in the film workshop) will have the task to renovate and set up the purchased or collected furniture with the help of a local professional, who will develop and lead the project under the technical aspects and will help to specify:

• which furniture are most needed, which ones will be crafted, and where to place them in the centre;
• what aspects of handcrafting activities can be suitable for volunteers during the whole stay, given their presumable lack of experience, and with particular attention to workers' safety;
• indicative work schedule divided in phases.

Working time will be every full morning of the stay, excepted a couple of days reserved for excursions.

We also want to setting up a computer network and a multimedia room: one of the purposes of this youth center will be precisely to connect with the world, to show the truth about the plight of millions of Palestinian refugees and explain why they have the sacred right of return to Palestine.

In order to set up the network, additionally to a good workstation computer purchased with our funds, some unsed computers (3 or 4 minimum) should be collected from persons or institutions to serve as terminals.

Alternatively, broken computers and functioning pieces can be taken and assembeled by some volunteers. Due to the high prices for the transportation, this buying and collecting should be made in Lebanon.

3. Social and political program

Besides of the video workshop and the volunteer work in the building, Sumud Brigade 2010 also contemplate a social and political part.

The participants will get to know the Lebanese and Palestinian political reality on the field. Simbolic places will be visited and prominent representatives of political parties and organizations will be met.

Planned excursions:

• Sabra-Shatila Camp - Shatila is the major Palestinian refugee camp near Beirut and an important ground for the Palestinian resistance; the camp is known for the massacre committed after the Israeli invasion of Lebanon 1982, when about 3000 persons were killed by the fascist Christian militias and the Israeli army. The camp also includes the cemetery of the Palestinian martyrs, the only non-confessional cemetery in the Arab world, where martyred Muslim, Christian and Jewish political activists are buried.
• Sidon, Tyrus and Southern Lebanon - The two main cities in the Southern Lebanon, Sidon and Tyrus, will be visited. Beside the city tours, an excursion will be organised to the southern boarder zone to visit the main fighting sites of the 2006 war.
• Refugee Camp of Nahr El-Bared, which was completly destroyed by the Lebanese army.

During their permanence, the international volunteers will meet:

• representatives of the political fractions of the camp;
• representatives of the Palestinian and Lebanese resistance organisations and civil society of southern Lebanon;
• local Lebanon authorities;
• representatives of Lebanon press during a press conference.