The Excellence Center Reviews

I came to Hebron from Turkey to do the Human Rights Intenship Program. During my time here, I got to get a sense of the life in Palestine. I met with Palestinian famiies living in the town or the villages, had interviews with professionals such as lawyers and teachers, and did field trips to see significant places for the city. I also learned Arabic to a level that I can form dialgoues now. The staff, including my Arabic teachers, were super nice, and helped me have a smooth and productive time. Because I had some free time during the week, I visited Bethlehem, Jericho, and the Dead Sea, which were not only beuatiful places to visit, but also helpful to get a better idea of how life in Palestine actually is. In addition, my host family was very nice, and helped me improve my Arabic a lot.

Hello, my name is Dena and I spent one week at the Excellence Center volunteering with the refugee program. I am a Palestinian American and it has always been a dream of mine to visit my home land. When I came across the Excellence Center, I found it was the perfect fit for me. I had the opprotunity to visit numerous refugee camps to learn more about the life in the camps. I met with many Palestinian people who welcomed me into their homes to tell me their stories. The arabic lessons the center provided made it easier to communicate with the people. I have learned so much during my time in Palestine. I visited many beautiful places such as Bethlehem, Ramallah, and Jerusalem. I felt very safe during my trip to Palestine and I am very excited to return.

Marhaba,
My name is Basim Warra and I was a volunteer here at the Excellence Center with the Palestinian refugees. The experience was absoutley amazing. The center provided lots of activities regarding my program which truly helped me grow not only as a learner but as a human. The program truly gave me a greater grasp of what is going on in my home couontryThe center also provided Arabic lessons which helped me enhance my current skills. In regards to the center's staff, everyone was very welcoming and generous. Overall as super great time and I highly reccomend.

My experience at the Excellence Center has been amazing. The people at the center are patient and very accommodating to the things you are trying to accomplish. It is also a good way to immerse yourself in Palestinian culture and understand the occupation as well. Being able to have conversations about standing for justice with other like minded people is very encouraging. That is also another way in which this experience was very helpful.

Each day I’d walk to the center and it was a good way to connect with people around the community and practice the Arabic I was learning. It also helped me to understand where these people are coming from and the daily struggles they have as a result of the occupation and the effects it has in their lives. There were a couple boys I’d greet each morning on my way to the center, and by the time I’d leave the center in the mid afternoon, they were just finishing up their work. These are children and should have more educational opportunities but as a result of the regulated life here in Palestine, these opportunities can be hard to find.

In little moments such as my walk to the center, or as big moments as meeting lawyers and going to refugee camps, the center provided tangible ways to understand what life is like here. This is exactly what I was hoping to get out of the trip, as I know it will help better inform me for my future efforts in my career. It is so important as a future career woman to make these connections, so I can be the best I can be for the people I will encounter at work. I have learned to be a better advocate and speak for what is right.

My time with the excellence center was such a precious experience for me.

I did around 9 weeks of intensive arabic and besides that was able to attend certain trips organized by the center.

Refering to my language classes i was more then lucky to learn with a super professional teacher. He managed to adapt to what i needed from the very beginning.
Because of his experience i could noticably improve my arabic within my stay.
We had super interesting conversations during class and he always managed to keep me motivated in moments i had doubts or was impatient with myself.

During my whole stay i was living with a lovely host family, which made me feel comfortable and welcomed from the first day.
This was my experience with all the khalili people i got to know during my time here: huge hospitality, openess and warmheartedness. After weekend trips to other places in Palestine i was always happy to come back to Khalil, because i enjoyed the atmosphere here a lot.
Ramadan here was an especially festive time that im happy i got to experience.

I really hope that i can sustain the relations i made with the people i got to know during my stay and would love to come back here again as soon as i can.

Hello! My name is Anne, I am 19, and I am from the Netherlands.
During my gap year I decided to stay with The Excellence Center in Hebron, Palestine, for a
month.
The programme I participated in was the Human Rights Programme and I helped out with
English Club.
I stayed here in April and the beginning of May. During my time in Hebron there were about
10 other volunteers and internationals, and I got to experience the second half of Ramadan
and Eid.
My hostfamily was super welcoming and warm. I arrived with 0 arabic, and the family barely
spoke English.
Nonetheless, my host mom put ‘we are one family now’ in google translate when I arrived,
which made me feel at home from the start.
I found it to be special to have Iftar with my family and to be brought along to family visits
during Eid.
Having community breakfast with other volunteers and staff at the center was always a nice
way to start the day.
After that I would have Arabic class, go on excursions to special sites or people, or have
English club.
Most days the schedule was quite chill, I’d often spend my late afternoons in one of the local
cafes with my friends to study Arabic together and have a nice hangout.
During the weekends, which were Fridays and Saturdays, I definitely recommend visiting
other cities in Palestine.
There are so many historical sites to see, like 8th century mosaic floors of a historical palace
in Jericho or the nativity church in Bethlehem.
Seeing other places has shown me the rich culture and different atmospheres across the
West bank.
While visiting Banksy or even just driving on the roads and seeing the settlements teaches
you the reality of occupation.
One thing that, from my experience, the different places in Palestine all have in common is
the warmth and kindness of the people.
Before coming here, most of my friends and family were worried about my safety and and
asked me why I had to go to Palestine, of all places.
However, from arrival onwards everyone has been so nice, and I have not had a moment
when I felt unsafe.
Everywhere you go people will greet you, say ‘welcome to Palestine!’ and help you when
needed.
I think I will experience a bit of a culture shock when I am back home, as Dutch people in
general are much more cold, and there won’t be coffee handed out in the supermarket.
My overall experience with the Excellence Center has been excellent. The staff and Arabic
teachers are kind and flexible. Hebron is a big city with lots of shops and stores and market
places. I got to try all kinds of new food, my personal favorite is knafeh.
I hope to be able to come back to Palestine soon in the future!

The instruction I received in the intensive Arabic course was great and all the lessons were 1 on 1 so I really made progress! For those studying Arabic here though you live in Neustadt which is good for practicing arabic but is quite a bit further than where the german students. You have to take the tram which can be quite unreliable! The accommodation in Neustadt was also a bit run down but my flatmate was very lovely and helped me practice my Arabic! Overall though the teaching is fantastic for the price you pay and it was a huge boost to my arabic, both my teachers Salma and Moaz were great and I will most likely return to study Arabic another time!

I spent two weeks teaching German and studying Arabic at the Excellence Center. (I would have taught English as well, but there were enough other volunteers at the time.) Everyone at the centre is really nice and friendly. Even though there was a significant age gap between the other short-term volunteers/students (all of them 19 or 20 years old) and me, everybody was happy to chat about this and that. Also Salma, Nargis and Ali, who work at the centre long term, were incredibly welcoming and created good vibes.

I taught a lovely Syrian lady every day, an almost complete beginner, and it was very rewarding to see her use the simple words and sentences we covered. As all the regular Arabic teachers were busy or away, Nargis (herself an intern) became my Arabic teacher. She was extremely helpful and patient and I got a lot of speaking practice (always my main concern when I take lessons).

My suggestion for the centre would be improved communication in organising stuff, like having a staff handbook with the basics about who is who and how the centre is run, and giving teachers more info about their prospective students before their first lesson.

I liked the fact that everyone gives presentations once in a while (about teaching methods, about themselves, and Salma about the situation of refugees in Halle) and found it really interesting to listen to them.

Halle itself is a nice, not overwhelmingly large city, which makes it easy to get around, with great cafés and beautiful architecture in the centre.

Thanks, danke and shukran everyone!

Hello everyone, I’m Adam from the UK and I have had the absolute pleasure of volunteering at the excellence centre for the past three weeks. During this time I have been able to tick many boxes off my list. Not only have I been able to visit Palestine, I have been able to engage with the community and be truly immersed in the culture.
The daily struggle of the Palestinian people is one I hold dear to my heart having grown up watching the situation, so to have the opportunity to volunteer here has been amazing. During my three weeks I have visited Jerusalem, Bethlehem, refugee camps and also the Bediun areas where we got to see and talk to people who had built caves underground to live because the IDF were destroying whatever structures they made above ground.
It was very important for me to not just come to Palestine as a tourist but to volunteer and help the community any way I could. At the excellence centre I was able to participate in English classes, which allowed me to interact with Palestinian youths, to laugh and organize games as well as other fun lesson activities. This was an extremely rewarding activity and as this was my first time teaching… anything.
I wasn’t quite sure what to expect or even do. The other volunteers here and the staff were so supportive and I managed to pick it up and roll with it. I also did the Arabic study option, as a beginner in Arabic the classes were very informative and gave me enough to have a conversation which is an added bonus.
The excellence centre is an extremely welcoming place, where everyone is more than happy to help. I guess this just reflects the overall Palestinian culture and the vibe I got in the west bank. From the moment I arrived by bus late at night I had already been driven to the centre by a lovely family and brought up stairs by another family to have coffee and cake whilst waiting for staff to come back.

This was my first glimpse into what I could expect in Palestine and over the last 3 weeks, moments like this where I have been shown extreme generosity are very common, actually. My experience here has been filled with special moments due to coming during Ramadan. The feeling of sitting around at a table with new friends whilst waiting for the aathan to start is a something I won’t forget.
Coming during this time period also meant we got the chance to be invited to local people’s houses and experience a true Palestinian iftar which, if I’m being honest with you guys. The food itself is enough to make me want to come back. The falafel and hummus will forever haunt my dreams and the rice and chicken dishes are second to none. But back to a more serious note, my time here living in the West bank has been an experience full of firsts and hopefully not the lasts. Until next time.

I spent six weeks at the Excellence Center in Palestine, where I attended the Human Rights program.

I arrived on a rainy day in Hebron coming from Bethlehem and felt unsure, what would expect me. The minute I arrived the people from the staff were extremely helpful and welcoming and told me we would have dinner at the center and then later I would meet my host family. Feeling tired of the new circumstances and unsure about what would expect me I started my first day at the center.

To be honest, I did not know what to expect of the host family and how the cultural differences would affect the co-living. I got to stay with Maha and her family who treated me as part of their family from the second I met them. Even though their English was very limited, their warm heart and hospitality exceeded all of my expectations and enabled me to settle in to my new life in Hebron with no issues at all, moreover it helped me to have a smooth start and gave me feeling of being at home even though I was in a completely new setting.

Quickly I realized that my foreseen three arabic hours a week would not be satisfactory for me as I really developed the want of being able to talk to my host family and connect with locals. Therefore I upgraded my Arabic classes and did about two hours a day with Duha. As there were not that many people at the center because of Ramadan, I got to have my Arabic classes by myself, which I am very grateful for. This setting allowed me to learn a completely new language at my own pace and not feel insecure about asking as many questions as I would need/want. I also enjoyed the fact that my teacher Duha was the same age as me. Through her I did not only start to learn the language. Additionally we could exchange thoughts and views about the different cultures we come from and I could have an insight into the views of a young Palestinian woman, which I really appreciate.

During my program I visited different refugee camps. We went to H2, which is the region in the old town of Hebron controlled by the Israeli authority, and visited a Palestinian family, who is strongly affected by the Israeli authority’s arbitrary aggression daily. We also went to see beduins, who struggle to keep their homes intact as they get destroyed by the Israeli authorities over and over again. We met human rights activists who told us about their work as well as local Palestinian authorities. We met Rani, who is a local artist, expressing the conflict through art.

The other volunteers at the center were all very open and quickly I built new friendships. On weekends we would visit places like Bethlehem, Ramallah or the Dead Sea and would spend many evenings eating Kunafe together or study at a café together. These friendships also helped me to process all the new insights and gave me a feeling of home away from home.

One of my favorite moments was a Ramadan iftar invitation we foreigners got from a big Alkhalili family. It was a big gathering, which was gender seperated. It was an experience I had never had before and the hospitality of this family I will never forget. In general, Palestine has to have the most hospitable people I have ever come across with. People here go out of their way to make you feel welcome and part of their community. I will truly miss this hospitality and kindness in other places.

During my entire stay in Hebron I never had any security issues or did not feel unsafe. There is nothing more to add to that. Of course, we as foreigners are in a privileged position though as we mostly stand out the crowd. People live a normal live here under the given circumstances.