Introduction
In June, Catalyst Co-Labs brought together 35 experts from 21 countries to address the educational disruption and mental health crisis faced by children in Gaza—a Co-Lab urgently requested by Creativity Lab Palestine in partnership with Yes Theatre for Communication among Youth, with their team of 150 teachers and psychologists currently living and working in Gaza.
The Challenge
Creativity Lab for Empowerment and Education, has operated across Gaza since 2016, engaging educators to offer children an informal and creative way to address their Mental Health and Psychosocial challenges through playful theater. Since the start of the war, they have been working across 60 shelters in Gaza.
Both organizations now find themselves in an unprecedented situation, having to operate in a region where 625,000 children are without access to schooling and where the children are experiencing severe signs and symptoms of trauma. At the same time, most caregivers are themselves too stressed and struggling to help children cope. Infrastructure, including most schools/universities and internet services, have been destroyed and over 22,500 teachers have been rendered jobless. The war has resulted in death and injuries to thousands of teachers.
While the larger, international organizations are waiting for a ceasefire before they enter Gaza to roll out their programs, the Co-Labs’ two host organizations are local and operational. They are now facing more children than ever before and felt an urgent need to reach out to global peers for support and expertise to understand how their programs could be adapted to the new situation. They also wanted to know what other programs and methods already existed, developed for children living in the midst of a ranging war.
They had no time to wait for a ceasefire. They were there and needed to act NOW.
Outcomes
Applications to join the Co-Lab poured in. From a pool of 150 applicants, Catalyst Co-Labs curated 35 experts from across the world. The two moderated, 90-minute Catalyst Co-Lab sessions have resulted in these tangible and significant outcomes so far:
- A sharing of many guidelines, training manuals, curricula and links to online resources. Creativity Labs and Yes Theatre have already started using some of these in the field.
- A committee of Co-Lab participants is currently gathering the results of the Co-lab to develop a long-term framework, co-creating innovative approaches to childhood mental health support and informal, accelerated learning that can be used and disseminated.
- A deep sharing of experiences between the co-lab participants, which both organizations are trying to learn from and to integrate within what they are doing on the ground.
- Participants volunteered to join a planning committee for Impact Exchange Week, a virtual event the host organizations will hold later this year (date TBC).
- Signing a contract with two American companies that will help the host organizations develop a digital platform focusing on mental health interventions through the use of technology.
However, what is an equally important result, is how local changemakers find hope, support and strength to go further when they realize that there is support to be found from a global network of experts and peers. And how this builds new relationships and courage for continuing their important work in the near, as well as, long term.
This quote by Mohammad Issa, the founder of Creativity Lab, is a beautiful description of just that:
“I cannot ignore that I’ve been heavily influenced by the results of the Co-Labs. I felt that there are a lot of people, a lot of experts who want to help and when they recommended a digital platform as a way to intervene in Gaza. I told myself that why not? Maybe we can focus on this issue? Our digital transformation strategy doesn’t only include a digital platform to provide therapeutic services. It’s also about storytelling, about the use of drama and theater in the virtual space. One of the main results of our Co-Lab was realizing that we had a good opportunity to focus on this issue. And that lead to us to signing contracts with two American companies to develop it!”
This Catalyst Co-Lab was funded by the UN Fund Education Cannot Wait, War Child and private donors.