Law & Human Rights Internship in Palestine (1-12 Weeks)

My name is Lillian, and I am from America. I am in my third year of university at the Pennsylvania State University, where I am in a dual-degree program pursuing a Bachelor of International Politics and a Masters of International Affairs at the same time. My primary focus in Middle Eastern Politics.

I’ve really enjoyed my time at the Palestinian Center for Education and Cultural Exchange in the Human Rights Internship program. In the morning, we always eat breakfast together at the center. The food is incredible. It’s also a really great time to catch up with everyone at the center, since some of us are in different programs or in the same program but with different schedules. After breakfast, we visit an organization related to human rights, such as the Independent Commission on Human Rights, or a family. We learn about topics ranging from the everyday life for Palestinians living near Israeli settlers to the treatment of Palestinian prisoners.

After the morning visit, we return to the center to teach English to Palestinian students for around 2 hours. The students are nice, and they’re usually super excited to practice English with a native speaker and learn about life in other countries. The international participants all have lunch together after the classes. There are a lot of great restaurants on Ain Sara Street, so we usually wander around a bit and eat somewhere new every day. After lunch, I always have Arabic class. My teacher Nadine is amazing and customizes our lessons to fit my interests and goals.

On Monday, we usually have a day trip. My first week, we spent the day in Bethlehem. This week, we went to the Al Aroub refugee camp.

I would absolutely recommend coming to Hebron! Despite everything I had heard in the media about the West Bank, I’ve never felt unsafe here. The people are incredibly welcoming. I can’t count the number of times I’ve been invited for coffee or tea after just meeting someone. Everyone has a story and wants to practice their English and hear what you think about Hebron. I can’t wait to hopefully come back in the future!

I spent 3 weeks in Hebron enrolled on the Israel-Palestine conflict program and the Volunteer in Local Schools program. I enjoyed my time there, and found the program to be an excellent introduction into Palestinian life and culture. I got to meet with a range of interesting people, and feel like I left with a much more thorough understanding of the conflict. All the people at the centre were welcoming and helpful, and there was a good environment with the other volunteers.

However, I think people should be very aware that this is a for-profit organisation, so with the teaching for instance, both you and the students pay, meaning that you will most likely teach middle class children. The organisation is also fairly apolitical. In other words, if you want to go to Palestine for humanitarian or political reasons, I would recommend checking out other organisations such as Youth Against Settlements or the International Solidarity Movement (ILS) instead (both are situated in Hebron).

My name is Hannah Brock and I’m a 20year old student of History and Politics at the University of Oxford. Although I was only able to spend one week with Go Palestine in Hebron, it was very informative and highly enjoyable!

During my time here, I have been introduced to many people who’s stories have helped shed light on the difficulties that ordinary Palestinians face day to day under Israeli occupation. Having open conversations with the families and people that we visited gave me very valuable insight into helping me form an opinion and a better understanding of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Not only did I get to meet local people and activists, I was shown round the Old City and Shuhada street to observe for myself the effects of Israeli occupation on the local population. We also visited the Ibrahimi mosque and had time to ourselves to walk through the Israeli settlements to get a feel for the difference in life between the segregated communities.

Culturally, staying with a wonderful host family who cooked kofta with us and were super warm and welcoming made my experience really special. I would often get food with the friends that I made at the centre - both other volunteers as well as centre members - and hang out in the evenings around Hebron. On our penultimate day, the centre also took us to visit a local glass blowing factory which I found fascinating and a keffiyeh factory too, to help us better understand Palestinian craftsmanship.

Staying in Hebron felt very safe, I would regularly walk home in the evenings with a friend and aside from cars beeping and waving at me in a friendly manner, I never felt in danger. You may feel wary around Israeli soldiers because they all don big guns which can be intimidating but they generally tend to treat foreigners better than the locals. The organisers and volunteers at the centre are so wonderful and helpful in every way and made me feel very at home. They were always receptive to my many many questions which I truly appreciated.

I would recommend others to visit the centre for the human rights course but I would also recommend that you consider what you would like to do in Hebron. The course is really flexible and the organisers are excellent at shaping the course around your priorities so having a few things in mind is a great starting point. The course is not entirely human rights focused and you will get a really good all-round picture of life in Hebron as well as Palestinian culture.

Shukran Kteer Go Palestine Hebron!

My name is Martha and I am a 20 year old Politics and International Relations student, studying at the University of Birmingham. I came to Hebron for a week-long Human Rights course in August 2019, during a month-long trip to Palestine.

My week in Hebron has been fantastic. My friend and I stayed with Marwa, who provided everything we could have wanted and was so warm and funny. It was great to meet her enormous family too and practice our Arabic with them, as we began to learn it at the centre. Osama, Mahmoud, Mohammad, Mutaz, Rafat and everyone else who works at the centre were friendly, helpful and very well informed.

During the week, we did many activities, leaving the centre to visit people or sites every day. I thought that our course would mostly be in classrooms, learning through lectures and so on. However, almost everything we learnt was through meeting Palestinians, human rights activists and through tours by fantastic guides (especially Mahmoud). We visited the closed down Shuhada Street, the Ibrahimi mosque and a family who live surrounded by three checkpoints. We also did fascinating things which were cultural and apolitical, such as visiting a glass-blowing factory, a keffiyeh factory and the Old Town market stalls.

We got to know a lot about Palestinian culture. We learnt some (limited!) Arabic, ate lots of fantastic food (especially knafa and kufta) and spoke to as many Palestinians as were willing to speak to annoying foreigners! The thing which has amazed me the most about Palestinian culture is the openness and friendliness of Palestinian people. We have got used to hearing “welcome to Hebron!” shouted at us on the street, and when we got lost people were always willing to help us as much as they could. The culture of chattiness and friendliness has been such a fantastic discovery on our trip here.

We have always felt safe. My friend and I (both female) have walked home almost every night, mostly quite late, and never felt unsafe during the long walk. People were by and large friendly and helpful, I never felt at risk while we were exploring the city. I felt uncomfortable when we were in military-controlled areas as I’m not used to being around police/soldiers with guns etc, but we never witnessed any incidents whilst on our trips.

I would recommend this programme highly. I have learnt so much about the situation for Hebronite Palestinians, met so many interesting people and had lots of interesting discussions. If anyone is interested in the difficult life that has been created for Palestinians here, or the ever-changing and complex military oppression, then this course is brilliant. Mahmoud was the perfect guide and provided lots of local insights and translated for us tirelessly. I would love to come back.

I’m Nikka Marie Dominique and I am currently a university student studying psychology in California, United States. I served as a Human Rights intern for Go Palestine for five weeks.

I’m extremely passionate and dedicated in learning about the wellness of people, specifically youth, in environments riddled with extreme trauma. I have more than five years of field experience working with young people in America on their mental and emotional stresses, yet realized that I did not have a satisfactory amount of knowledge on the state of children’s emotional health in places other than the United States. In the end, I chose to come to Palestine because I wanted to expand my understanding on human and children behavior in trauma and knew Palestine would have a lot to learn from.

Al Khalil (Hebron) is a completely different society and environment than any of the ones that I’ve known. It’s an area that is riddled with stereotypes and misconceptions, and I rather understand the reality of the situation for myself. By choosing to come to Palestine, I knew that I would have a completely novel learning experience that would enhance my knowledge in ways that I couldn’t if I were to just simply to stay at home and do research on the topic.

Palestine, in general, is safe. Every day as I manage the city by myself, I am majorly confident about my safety. I am comfortable being alone and taking taxis, walking several kilometers, being out at dark, being at cafes or restaurants, and more. Being an outsider, I definitely notice the army guarding specific and limited places in the city, but unfortunately understand that my foreign citizenship makes soldiers more likely to negatively interact with locals instead of me. As a young foreign woman, the only moments that I felt threatened was by men on the streets, and even then, the street harassment I have experienced here in the city is comparable to the street harassment I experience at home in America as a woman. In total, I feel fairly secure in Palestine.

Go Palestine has been excellent in supporting me and ensuring that I have relevant activities to my program. I have conducted interviews with various Palestinian non profit organizations and have gone on visits to areas that are especially demonstrative of the human rights violations in Palestine. I have highly valued most, if not all, events that my program coordinator has organized to facilitate my learning.

Being able to live with a host family in Hebron city has been one of the most prominent highlights of my stay in Palestine. From what I’ve heard from other participants at the excellence center, experiences can vary. I believe that the host family situation can depend on what the intern decides- if the intern hopes to be out more, then the family can be a safe and respectful place to stay, but if the intern, like myself, hopes to interact with the family more, then the family can grow to be a lasting and meaningful relationship. I am so happy to say that I now consider my host family just my family and all of us plan to stay in contact even after my departure from Palestine.