Dear friends,

June is an important month for Anar. 150 new facilitators are currently being trained across the West Bank in Anar’s psychosocial accompaniment methods. They are coming together in Bethlehem, Hebron, Tulkarem, Tubas, and Nablus to learn with and from each other as they accompany even more children and caregivers in their own communities.

For insight into what these incredible facilitators do, we highly encourage you to watch the video of our recent online event, Each Child Has a Story: Building Resilience Through Art and Play. In it, Anar’s Psychosocial Support Unit Coordinator Dara Rafeedie and Psychosocial Accompaniment Facilitator Phoebe Awad provide a comprehensive overview of the Makan program, including many details about the arts practices and philosophies in Anar’s work with children. Dara and Phoebe also show us how beautifully Anar colleagues accompany each other in deep and authentic ways.

Today, Anar’s four-month pilot program also officially began in central Gaza, with the hiring of a social worker and four psychosocial accompaniment facilitators. This vital work is taking place in the Gaza Governorate and the Middle Governorate (Nseirat & az-Zawayda) and is focused on strengthening the psychosocial well-being and coping mechanisms of hundreds of children and caregivers who have experienced unthinkable violence during the genocide.

We will have much more to share about Anar’s pilot in Gaza and the new West Bank accompaniment teams in the months to come. Thank you to everyone who has made this work possible. Healing to Hope supports Anar in every region it serves, and we are the sole financial resource for the new and vital work in Gaza. Your donations, especially recurring donations, help us make sure all of Anar’s essential community-based psychosocial accompaniment with Palestinian children and caregivers continues now and in the future.

We will be back at the end of June to offer a more comprehensive overview of all of the exciting developments taking place this month. In the meantime, please don’t hesitate to reach out to info@healingtohope.org with any questions.

In this online event, we focus on Anar’s Makan program, which uses creativity as a tool for children to express and explore their emotions. In Makan (“space” in Arabic), children engage in visual art, storytelling, performance, creative play, and other artistic modalities to share their feelings and process their experiences from a child-centered perspective, while also gaining tools to build resilience in the face of fear and violence. Anar Psychosocial Accompaniment Facilitator Phoebe Awad shares details about her creative engagement with children in Makan, and Anar Psychosocial Support Unit Coordinator Dara Rafeedie provides an overview and clinical perspective on Makan’s work.

Thank You

Thank you for supporting the work of Healing to Hope and Anar to advance the well-being and resilience of Palestinian children and caregivers impacted by violence and oppression. We appreciate our entire community for committing to the movement for justice and healing in Palestine.