Summer school at Jeel al Amal

The McCabe Educational Trust has, for the 4th consecutive year, funded a group of volunteers from the Unipal teaching charity to run a summer school at Jeel al Amal Boys Home in Bethany. From reports we have received, the programme goes from strength to strength and is now a well established annual event.

The summer school volunteers are constantly amazed at what the Jeel staff achieve with minimal resources and funding. Our McCabe pilgrims regularly visit the home and in January Jeel will be a major benefactor from our sponsored walk around Jerusalem’s old city walls. Places are still available if you would like to join the walk.

Here is some feedback from the Summer School team:

Clare Turner writes:  ‘As soon as you enter Jeel you feel how warm, safe and structured a life the home provides. The boys are growing up in an environment where they are supported and encouraged to learn at every opportunity.   I think that of all my experiences, the trip we did the first weekend we were there, to a village near Ramallah, was the most memorable.

When we arrived in Deir Ammar, after winding up and down through terraces of olives and grapes, we were greeted by a man and his family living in a big house in the village.  He explained that he had been a boy at Jeel and that now he is a lawyer.  He paid for the boys to come and we spent the day having a picnic in a pine forest near his village.  The boys absolutely loved the trip; running around the forest, singing songs and playing games and were, as always, incredibly well-behaved.  I spoke to our host and he told me how much he had enjoyed his time at Jeel al Amal and how he had gone on to get a scholarship to study at university and had become a lawyer.  He felt it was important for the Jeel boys to understand that they can have just as many opportunities as any other Palestinian children and that they should never feel that they cannot achieve as much as anyone else.

It made me wonder how many children who have been in care in the UK would do the same and feel so much warmth and attachment to their former home.’

A special Thank You to McCabe pilgrims who helped us achieve £6,607 during August contributing to a total of £110,437 raised so far this year!

With your help, we will continue helping those in need we encounter on our travels.