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"In order to give these people
hope, I myself must have hope," she says in fluent
Hebrew. "I cannot confine myself within four walls. When
I face a wall, I cannot see the hope."
Ringing in earnest
Othman came to Pyalara because she felt an intense
need to "do something." She explains that she first
became involved with the association about half a year
ago, during the extremely difficult period following the
Israel Defense Forces' Operation Defensive Shield.
Othman and 12 other social-work students participated in
a two-week course that trained them in dealing with
people in crisis situations. After completing the
course, they started working on the new hot line that
had been established by Pyalara.
"The situation was catastrophic," she recalls.
"People would call us and tell us that they had seen
dead bodies and injured citizens. Other people would
phone and inform us that they had nothing to eat. During
that period, some members of the public heard about the
hot line over the television and radio."
Othman and her friends who recognized that there was
a need for a shoulder to cry on at such a time, soon
became aware, however, that few Palestinians had heard
about the hot line. They then launched a promotional
tele-marketing campaign, and the telephones soon began
ringing in earnest at the offices.
Since then, four volunteers daily operate the hot
line during each shift, which begins at 11 A.M. and ends
at 5 P.M. Although it was originally intended that the
hot line would serve teenagers, the volunteers say that
most of the callers are actually between the ages of 18
and 28. The volunteers put their reports in a thick
file. The reports contain descriptions of phone
conversations and, page by page, in the designated
spaces, the dry facts are listed: the date and hour on
which the conversation took place, the caller's age,
marital status, occupation and level of schooling.
Elsewhere on the page, the volunteer summarizes the
caller's problem.
"We receive many calls," says Othman, "from parents
who tell us that their children are so afraid that they
wet their beds at night. A large number of our callers
complain of nightmares. I myself have heard from many
callers about domestic problems - between husband and
wife or between parent and child. Because of the
closures and curfews, everyone just stays in the house,
they simply cannot go outside. They complain that they
are bored and depressed, which then causes us to feel
depressed. Sometimes I feel that I have no strength
left, that I just can't go on, that I need someone to
help me."
In such cases, she consults with the social worker
supervising her or else goes out to buy something to
drink downtown.
Pyalara was founded three years ago. Its declared goal
is "to encourage constructive activity among Palestinian
adolescents in the various fields of communication."
With a budget of $144,000, allocated by the United
Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) and organizations
affiliated with the European Union, the association
publishes a monthly newspaper for teenagers; indeed,
this is its main activity. Tens of thousands of copies
are distributed throughout the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
The newspaper aims to provide Palestinian adolescents
with a platform for expressing themselves, and to help
them avoid succumbing to feelings of despair over what
is happening in their daily lives.
"We have created something that is absolutely
incredible," notes Pyalara's executive director,
33-year-old Jerusalemite Hania Bitar, who also serves as
editor-in-chief of the organization's teen paper, The
Youth Times, most of which is in Arabic, with a few
articles in English. The Youth Times is printed at the
printing press of the Ramallah-based newspaper, Al-Ayyam.
In her office - where visitors can see a giant jigsaw
puzzle of the Al-Aqsa Mosque, a photograph of Bitar and
Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat (both with
a broad smile on their face), and a model of greater
Palestine hewn out of pinkish stone - Bitar proudly
displays the latest (24-page) issue of The Youth Times.
Taboo topics
The front-page story is about 13 young journalists
from the Gaza Strip, who participated in a course for
media correspondents that was organized by the
newspaper. ("The Gaza Strip youths are much more
competitive than their West Bank counterparts.") On the
first few pages, which, according to Bitar, "have a
political flavor," readers can find letters to the Iraqi
people (the letters are accompanied by a picture of
President Saddam Hussein), a report on the opening of a
peace center in Bethlehem, and an interview with someone
who describes how he was tortured by investigators from
Israel's Shin Bet security service.
The following pages feature an item about a
Palestinian writer who died recently, the story of a
young Palestinian singer who returned home after a
concert tour abroad and was humiliated at Ben-Gurion
International Airport, and an article expressing a
sincere longing for the period of normalcy when school
excursions were not canceled because of the "situation."
The paper also has cooking and Internet sections, as
well as poems of a nationalist nature and a report about
sexual harassment in Palestinian society.
"We deal with issues that are taboo in Palestinian
society," Bitar points out. "We might reject an article
because it was poorly written, but we do not believe in
censoring ideas." She admits, however, that her
newspaper does come under censorship, but of a different
variety altogether. A year and a half ago, an issue of
The Youth Times was not distributed in Hebron because it
dealt with sexual harassment. Another issue whose
front-page carried a group photograph in which one young
girl was wearing an undershirt, encountered distribution
problems.
"It is our mission," declares Bitar with pathos, "to
keep the flame of hope burning in the hearts of
Palestinians and to enable our readers to look ahead to
the future. We are trying to make the lives of our
adolescents a little more bearable and to give them an
opportunity to express what is boiling their blood."
The grim situation in the territories, she adds, is
increasing the motivation of her newspaper's young
correspondents to report, but is simultaneously making
it hard to put out a newspaper. The roadblocks and
prolonged closures have made a 100-percent turnout at
editorial meetings an exceeding rare event, and Bitar
admits that the newspaper's correspondents in Hebron are
angry with Pyalara because contact has been severed with
them due to the situation. There is no personal contact
with Youth Times correspondents in the Gaza Strip, who
sometimes even find it difficult to obtain the
newspapers carrying their articles. Communication is
conducted via the telephone or e-mail.
"They write their articles without previously consulting
with the editors," notes Bitar with a smile.
No mention of suiciders
Working in journalism - perhaps because it keeps
these young people busy - seems to be having an impact
on the lives of the newspaper's young correspondents.
One of The Youth Times' writers, Lana Kamleh, is quoted
in on-line magazine "salon.com" as saying that her
involvement with Pyalara has led her to shelve ideas of
volunteering for a suicide-bombing mission against an
Israeli target. In one instance, however, contact with
Pyalara had the opposite effect: Bitar refers to one
Palestinian teenager who attended a meeting at the
editorial offices several months ago and who expressed
an interest in participating in the association's
anti-drug project. He never reappeared. A few months
ago, it was learned that he had been killed when he
launched a shooting attack at Jerusalem's French Hill
intersection.
Pyalara's members, who declare that their policy is
to bring an end to the Israeli occupation through
nonviolent methods, were shocked by this incident;
however, the newspaper that they publish displays no
empathy whatsoever toward the Israeli victims of terror
attacks. To date, The Youth Times has not discussed the
question of suicide bombings, but Bitar says the subject
will be dealt with in the upcoming issue of her paper,
or in the next one. "This is a sensitive topic," she
notes.
The sun has already begun to set and another caller
has phoned in to the hot line. Ata Haji, 22, who lives
in Jerusalem, has taken the call. At the other end of
the line is a 20-year-old woman from Ramallah. She
sounds nervous and depressed. She feels as if all the
doors have been shut in her face. Although the hot
line's representatives are not supposed to conduct
conversations lasting more than 20 minutes, Haji is in
no hurry to cut this one short. One young girl who
called earlier told him about her family problems and
added, parenthetically, that her father was a shaheed
(martyr) who was wounded by IDF gunfire a year ago.
"Many people call us and just break down in tears,"
says Othman. "They tell us about sexual problems, fights
with their parents and all sorts of difficulties that
appear to be unrelated to the occupation. However, when
all is said and done, everything can be attributed to
the present situation."
The people at Pyalara are now making preparations for
the daily obstacle course they must go through when
making their journey home. Some of them have even
brought along pajamas - in case they might be forced to
spend the night somewhere along the way. They can easily
identify with the hardships of their hot-line callers
and with the readers of their newspaper. In the eyes of
the staff members, the items in The Youth Times, the
conversations they conduct with their callers, and the
roadblocks they must pass or circumvent are all related
to the occupation.
Source :http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=225797&contrassID=2&subContrassID=15&sbSubContrassID=0&listSrc=Y
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