Access to education is not easy for everyone. Students from the American University of Sharjah (AUS) discovered this first-hand from their peers in Gaza and the West Bank at the Defending the Freedom to Learn conference in Qatar recently.
Selected as part of the newly formed Student Leadership Programme at AUS, six students were sponsored by the Al Fakhoora foundation to meet with their peers from Qatar, Palestine, Egypt, UAE, the UK and US. The aim was to teach a broad range of students how to properly advocate and raise public awareness about students struggling to receive basic and higher education in Palestine.
Advocacy campaign
Launched by Qatari students in January 2009, Al Fakhoora is an international advocacy campaign. It aims to build on the power of global student support to protect and expand educational opportunities for children and students in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.
"At the conference we had a chance to speak with students from Palestine and learn how they live," said Fareed Al Harmoudi from AUS. "They suffer the most from the Israeli check points which constantly make them late for class," he added.
"It is hard for them to get proper information and study materials for their courses," said Rania Al Ani from AUS. "The Israelis control what Palestinian students learn anyway," she added.
The conference prompted the group to propose ways for the AUS administration to facilitate access to education for students in Palestine. One of the suggested methods was through full scholarships, explained Al Harmoudi.
However, Rania said this is not what the students in Palestine want. "They told us they want to stay in Palestine and would rather people know what's happening. They want people to simply stay in contact with them so they don't feel isolated," she said. "They want people to talk to them online through MSN Messenger and Facebook," she added.
"The students came to me with a project to establish something similar to Al Fakhoora in AUS to support education in Palestine," said Munkith Taher, AUS director of student activities.
Spread the word
Initially a plan is under way to set up video conference calls and chat sessions between AUS students and students in Palestine, said Rania.
"We are setting up boards in every college at AUS to add information about Al Fakhoora to raise awareness levels of the rest of the students," said Rania. "At first it will be hard to get them [AUS students] interested but we will then coordinate with the Palestinian club at AUS to set up online conferences with students Palestine," she added.
"We need to raise awareness in order to prompt political responses from Arab governments to do something to help Palestinian students," said Rania. "Students in the US don't have easy access to media but they can protest. In the UAE we can't protest but we can do other things," she added.
