Past Problems Undergoing Genuine Improvement

Like the last two reviews, my experience with Teach for Palestine was with the previous management and it was less than stellar. Communication was bad, support was fairly non-existent, and even respect from the managers was something I rarely experienced. However, and there will be a lot of howevers in this review, the experience was genuinely special. My fellow volunteers were amazing people and we cultivated a family atmosphere in our apartment right from the start. My students were amazing and I will never forget many of them. The city and the Palestinian community was largely welcoming and I never felt unsafe. If you do end up choosing TFP, you will not regret your choice of location.

Again, my experience was tarnished by the management. However, there has been a change in leadership and the current organizers are largely the same teachers I was lucky enough to be living with in my time there. While I cannot guarantee they will be nice (they're the bosses after all), I can confidently say that I believe they will be fair and that they are doing their best to improve upon the mistakes of the past.

If you go, be prepared for simple living quarters. Internet is slow but available, there is no cable, and electricity is a genuine concern which can cramp the lifestyle that many of us have gotten used to. This is something you should have already realized before going to a place like Palestine though. When speaking to the management during the hiring process, be sure to insist on details concerning your role and placement in the organization. Though they may not have worked out all the details before the start of the teaching period, they should have enough to tell you what your costs should be, if you will be required to pay your transportation to and from your teaching site, and what kind of support you can expect to receive. I didn't get any of this info and I regretted it later on. But again, knowing the kind of people the current managers are, I believe they will be honest with you and do their best to answer your questions to the best of their ability.

So do your due diligence and don't jump into anything, but know this: the bad things you may have read on the internet about TFP are/were true. However, all of those things happened under the previous management and all of the people involved in making it a clusterfuck of disorganization are gone and have been replaced by genuine human beings that, in my experience, are awesome. Also keep in mind that Palestine will be a transformative experience for you regardless of the management. It's a special place that deserves all the help it can get.