Supporters and volunteers have been helping village schools in Burin and Madama in the West Bank since 2010. More recently the vulnerable boys’ school in Urif, As-Sawwiya School, Tel Girls School and Bruqin Junior school have also received our support. For a summary of our earlier projects, please click here.
April 2026
At last our special project to provide free school breakfasts to pupils in Madama has started. 235 children are now receiving freshly made meals three days a week. An impressive amount has been raised through donations and other sources including trustees’ contacts. We are extremely grateful as this will ensure the scheme continues at least till the end of the year. The pupils were naturally delighted and we hope this will boost their energy and drive to learn. Other than nutrition, it proves to them that people in other countries are thinking of them during this stressful time. See also the special fundraising page for School Breakfasts.
October 2025
Zoom about the West Bank situation
Three volunteers who helped West Bank farmers in ‘our’ villages (when it was feasible) have recently returned there to visit our friends, at their own expense. After four days, a short visit due to the tense situation and risks, they hosted a zoom for OHT trustees and other interested volunteers. It was an enlightening discussion of well over an hour, painting a sad picture of the current situation.
August 2025
This summer’s project concerned the dilapidated, lengthy wall surrounding the playground at Madama Boys’ School. After consultation with teachers it was decided to fund repairs and murals by a local painter for the cost of £1375. The students are delighted to have this colourful, uplifting backdrop in high contrast to the ongoing violence and troubles in the West Bank.
These photos show some of the imaginative highlights – including Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa mosque wrapped in a keffiyeh.
March 2025
Despite the ongoing violence and severe restrictions on village life, Burin school farm continues to flourish. Hens are now producing about 128 eggs per day; the money earned by selling the eggs pays for chicken feed. Lemon trees are thriving, two beehives have been introduced, and a hydroponic system for growing herbs installed; water is sourced mainly from underground aquifers. The farm now boasts a dozen polytunnels and a heated strawberry conservatory.
This is not all entirely funded by the OHT but gratitude for our initial impetus and continuing input is clear – see here.
Another project funded by the OHT earlier this year was a grant of £4130 to install CCTV cameras and monitors at Burin Community School. It is hoped these will deter attacks by settlers and the IDF – the latter has raided all three schools in Burin using tear-gas which causes huge distress and after-effects among students.
NOVEMBER 2024
Despite the escalating attacks and incursions by the IDF and settlers into Palestinian villages, the OHT was able to fund another batch of 150 laying hens to the expanding farm at Burin Community School. This will give students some welcome enjoyment during this traumatic period as well as supply eggs to villagers who suffer increasingly from food poverty.
SEPTEMBER 2024
All’s now well in terms of learning tools at Tel Girls’ School. The tablets used by the students in the photo below were funded by OHT and are loaned to them by the school. This continues the Emergency online learning appeal that has already helped students in Madama, Burin and Urif (see May 2024). The ongoing violence in the West Bank has seriously curtailed lessons, so this initiative will give them a huge boost.
We are also pleased to show the completed staircase at As-Sawwiya School which will allow students to enter the school safely (again, see May 2024).
2023
Our activities in 2023 were severely curtailed due to issues with transferring funds and, after October 7th, the fall-out from the Gaza war. Madama Boys School received a grant of £1750 to finance monitors and erect fencing around their playground to create a safer environment. Bruqin School was allocated £250 to cover irrigation pipes, seeds for plants and paint for the playground which we have helped refurbish in the past.
NOVEMBER 2022
Burin Community School‘s agricultural project which we first glimpsed in 2018 (read about its beginnings here) has expanded massively, partly thanks to OHT funds. We financed two additional polytunnels which are up and running, filled with rocket, parsley, chilli peppers and lettuce (below).
Madama Girls School The sturdy, custom-made podium (below) that we funded last year was in place in the playground, enhanced by an astro-turf cover! One of our trustees gives an idea of the scale. Money left over from this grant was used to buy art materials at a local shop, so helping the Palestinian economy and encouraging creativity.
Urif Boys School This isolated school has suffered repeated attacks from settlers from Yitzhar as it was built high above the village, next to an access road and not far from the settlement. We know and respect the headmaster, Ayed Al-Qot, from his previous post at Madama Boys School, and want to help as much as we can to make conditions more acceptable.
Our decision to fund a protective wall to ensure a safer environment for the 200 students was backed by two other NGOs which provided a gate and canopy. The result should hopefully stem the appalling violence.
OCTOBER 2018
After our successful meeting in 2017 and initial small donation, Madama Girls’ School benefited from more OHT funds in 2018. Thanks to her immaculate paperwork, the headmistress, Nawal Mahmoud Rabay’a, was given £1250 to build a platform in the school playground for dance performances and speeches. This was top of her wish-list and should be completed in early 2019 by local craftsmen. With some £80 left over, we were able to buy art materials in Nablus. Big smiles all round.
Let there be music…in Burin
On an equally positive note, we were able to contribute to Burin Community School’s newly formed school orchestra. Three trustees accompanied the recently appointed music teacher, Ihssan Foqha (an accomplished oud-player) to a well-stocked music shop in nearby Huwwara armed with a list of desired instruments. The two-hour shopping-trip was greatly helped by Ihssan’s brother, a professional musician.
The final selection included a Yamaha keyboard with stand, two ouds, a guitar, tabla, xylophone, drum-kit, plus other drums and tambourines, totalling just over £1500 – with a discount. Two days later, some of us witnessed the first music class in a newly created Music Room at the school. Click here to enjoy the video!
It was officially inaugurated a week later with a representative from the Ministry of Education. Speeches, flags, laughter, dancing and music made it a memorable occasion and OHT representatives were given a ‘thank you’ plaque from the school. This was all visible proof that music is a wonderful therapy for these children and a means of bringing them together creatively and joyfully.
