The Aida Youth Center is located in the center of Aida refugee camp in Bethlehem. The camp is the home of more than 5,500 Palestinians, which became officially recognized as refugees by the UN in 1948. This means they passed over the status as a refugee to the third or even fourth generation. The growing population is located on an area of less than 0,071km2. Besides these conditions the camp is directly located next to the Israeli separation wall, an Israeli military base and seven watchtowers. A study of Human Right Watch Center in California revealed that the Aida community are the most exposed people to tear gas attacks all over the world (https://humanrights.berkeley.edu/programs-projects/no-safe-space). People in the camp struggle from water scarcity, insufficient infrastructure, and poverty.
More than half of the Aida refugee community are children facing these conditions daily without almost no alternatives. Being aware of this, the Aida community organized themselves and founded the Aida Youth Center, mostly maintained with the help of local and international volunteers. Besides formal education offers like lessons for Arabic, Mathematics or English in the afternoon, there are also informal education offers. The children can for example draw their own comics; they learn to play an instrument, playing theater or just come to hang around with other minors. Currently the youth center is working on opening a science lab for children. In the lab the local children are getting the opportunity independent or guided to facilitate experiments.
Experiments improve creativity, helps to understand scientific contexts and sets the base of holistic education. Children are getting the possibility to learn with all senses. Convinced of this idea we would like to support the Aida Youth center in the implementation of the science lab. For this, equipment is needed such as test tubes, microscopy, loupes, colours etc. According to the raised fund we will be able to add more items.
