First Impressions of Palestine

Each year, a number of internationals visit Palestine for the first time as part of the Lajee Center’s International Summer Workcamp.

Radio Lajee spoke with some of this year’s participants to find out what surprised them most about their experiences here.

This video was produced by Radio Lajee’s Linda Azzeh, Basil Zboun, Maren Rosenberg and Daz Chandler.

For further information about the International Summer Workcamp, please email info@lajee.org

The International Summer Work Camp

Photo caption: Italian volunteer Paolo spends time with some local kids from Aida Camp.

Every summer, the Lajee Center hosts an eclectic bunch of individuals from all over the world as part of the International Summer Work Camp.

Established in 2001, the camp provides attendees with a first-hand experience of life inside Occupied Palestine as well as an introduction to Palestinian history, traditions, art and culture and of course, lots of new friends.

Over the 15 day period, the group enjoys a range of activities including Arabic language, dabke and cooking classes plus several fascinating speakers from Aida Camp, Palestine and beyond.

Throughout the next couple of weeks, Radio Lajee will be featuring excerpts from these presentations.

Workshops and Fieldtrips…

From left: Hiba, Layan and Mousa enjoy the view at a popular Nablus look-out.

Salam everybody! Hope things are good with you.

Here, although it’s summer time and extremely hot, things are a-buzzing.

Daz Chandler is back and another round of Radio Lajee media training workshops is currently underway with Radio Lajee’s Layan Al Azzeh, Shoroq Assad, Hiba Al Azraq and Mohammad Waleed at the helm.

We’ve spent many a day over the past couple of weeks huddled inside the air-conditioned Lajee Center library, revisiting the objectives behind Radio Lajee, discussing the power of blogging and exploring new ways to make our media content more diverse, vibrant and regular. Check in with us again soon – we’ve got lots of stimulating bits and pieces on the way ; )

The other day when brainstorming some story ideas, we decided that Radio Lajee was due a field trip. So, last Saturday morning we headed to the Palestinian city of Nablus to record a story about the mouth-watering Palestinian dessert, Kanafeh.

The trip was a huge success and proved to be extremely fruitful; Layan, Hiba and Mousa produced audio, photography and video content. Stay tuned, this will all uploaded soon – we promise.

In the meantime, please continue to spread the word about Radio Lajee – the bigger an audience we have the better. And, if you haven’t already, don’t forget to become a fan on Facebook and follow us on Twitter.