School Project

Forming young leaders to promote active citizenship
A project aimed at training and forming young leaders in schools located in the Bethlehem area and in Jerusalem, to promote active citizenship and a culture of caring, inclusiveness, sharing and cooperation.

The Focolare in the Holy Land, in collaboration with Children without Borders – Bethlehem, Conférence permanente des Villes historique de la Méditerranée, ISPROM and New Humanity NGO, is developing “togetherWEconnect”, a program to train young leaders in schools located in the Bethlehem area and in Jerusalem.

Through formation sessions, lectures, activities and interactive methods, the program aims at providing an experience in which students can:

  • encounter one another: ‘together we connect’;
  • develop and strengthen attitudes of active participation, care for others and for the environment, respect for differences and diversity, teamwork and mutual support;
  • acquire skills that contribute to their human growth and empowerment.

This is a pilot project that can be modulated and expanded to a growing number of schools and to other places in the Holy Land.

The program is targeted for students in 7th-8th-9th grades and offers a path that is developed gradually over three school years to ensure deeper and more effective personal processing and internalization of its contents. As students move forward along the path, they will become facilitators and animators for those just beginning the program.

In each school year, training sessions will involve participating students over a period of several months. Specific topics will be addressed by expert speakers or through appropriate educational materials: respect, recognition and care for others; violence prevention and conflict management; active participation in society; and integral ecology. Local and foreign professionals/trainers will promote workshops and activities (music, dance, theater, visual arts, and sports) focused on the addressed topics.

The year-long journey will culminate in a final week during which events open to the public are planned: exhibitions, concerts/performances and tournaments.

  • Sites

    As the project develops, other schools in the same places or in other areas of the Holy Land could also be involved.

  • Project Launch: October 24, 2024

    The Project launch gathered representatives of the Project’s promoting organizations, as well as local authorities, religious leaders, school principals, educators, students, and the local community.

    The objectives of the project were outlined, as well as the topics that will be covered during the formation planned for the first year (2024-2025).

    See: https://www.focolare-hl.org/stories/together-we-connect-bridges-of-hope-and-peace/ – https://www.focolare-hl.org/stories/october-24-2024-launching-togetherweconnect/

  • Implementation: during the 2024-2025, 2025-2026 and 2026-2027 school years

    In each school year, training sessions will involve participating students over a period of several months.

    Each formation topic will be delivered through lectures and activities over a period of 6 weeks, 45 minutes per week. A final delivery (in a form of poster, essay, short video clip, poem, photo, …) would then be shared with the other schools involved, via a dedicated page on the Holy Land Focolare website.

    An ‘action’ present in the ‘Cube of Peace,’ a cube on whose faces there are sentences that help build peaceful relationships, would also be associated with each topic.

    During the 2024-2025 School year, the program would cover these 3 topics:

    • Understanding oneself, self-esteem and personal development [Treat others as you want to be treated]
    • Education to conflict management and encounter in teamwork [Forgive those who hurt you]
    • Intergenerational and peer dialogue [Discover the good in others]

    The program will end, each year, with a series of workshops that, through interactive methods employing language and expression familiar to youth – sports, art, music, dance, theater – will focus on the topics addressed during the formation months.

    Music and Dance: Workshop sessions by performers/artists, both local and from abroad, focusing on the promotion of talents, empowerment and well-being, and producing a concert that shares a message of commitment to active citizenship.

    Theater: Workshops coordinated by a professional theater school, aimed at building bridges of understanding, care and inclusiveness through educational activities, cultural meetings and the production of a final performance/play open to the public.

    Photo/Video: Workshops offered by professionals aimed at producing short movies and artistic photos with the use of cell phones. A photo/video contest on themes such as “Share about Peace” and “Nature as Gift” will conclude the program. Artworks will be displayed and viewed during the “premiere” and/or published online.

    Sports: Formation meetings and team sports training sessions, highlighting values such as teamwork, fair play, solidarity. During games and a final tournament, the winning teams will be determined by the actual score and by the level of how much the proposed values are put into practice.

    Peace Garden: Workshops combining art education and elements of landscaping, aimed at creating a “Peace Garden” where the “Cube of Peace” will be installed. The “Cube of Peace” is a cube on whose faces there are sentences that help build peaceful relationships: Be first to reach out to others; Treat each person with respect; Share each other’s joys and hurts; Discover the good in others; Treat others as you want to be treated; Forgive those who hurt you.

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