A Summer Camp for Children in Beit Ummar

Last year the Center for Freedom and Justice – Colorado (CFJ) launched a successful campaign to purchase backpacks for the children of Beit Ummar and surrounding villages in the West Bank. This year we are helping to fund a Summer Discovery Camp for 70 students (ages 9-14) to introduce them to technology, give them a fun experience and provide greatly needed relief from the occupation.

The children of Beit Ummar live in an impoverished community where 60 percent of the adult population is unemployed. Surrounded by six Israeli settlements, the village has been under military occupation since 1967. Children face the horrors of night-time raids and a constant fear their houses will be demolished or that they or members of their families will be taken away. One-third of all Palestinian children incarcerated in Israeli prisons come from Beit Ummar. The traumas these children have experienced cannot be adequately described.

·       Help from others gives children hope that they are not alone in the world.

At Camp, the children will be divided into small groups and given a kit consisting of a laptop computer and devices to teach programming (over 50% of the children in Palestinian schools have no access to computers). The groups will attempt to build a robot! 

Field and swimming trips will reward the children for their work.

At the end of the Camp the children will showcase their accomplishments by hosting an exhibition for their parents, principals and teachers.

·       We rely on the generous contributions of supporters like you to fund the Summer Discovery Camp. We need to raise $4,000 for the following:

5 Laptop Computers                                                                   $ 1,900

Snacks, Swimming and Field Trip                                        $ 1,700

Materials, Exhibition Day and Other Costs                  $    400

Total Cost:                                                                                        $ 4,000

To learn more about the situation in Beit Ummar, please visit our Facebook Page at Center for Freedom and Justice – Colorado (https://www.facebook.com/CFJColorado). You can also visit the Center for Freedom and Justice in Palestine’s Facebook Page at www.facebook.com/CenterFJ/ or their website at www.cfj.org/en.