Child Testimony
Held in December 2000, the Testimony of a Child is Sabreen’s most recently developed educational music initiative. The recreational relief project was designed to provide a needed release for children from the difficult circumstances and tensions associated with the latest uprising. Through a combination of music and art therapy workshops, the program sought to guide society, children in particular, in coping with the state of violence.
The project, targeting students from grades 6-9 in the Ramallah, Jerusalem and Bethlehem regions, consisted of a series of workshops organized and led by a team of professionals in music, theatre, painting, poetry, and the mental health field. Workshop sessions, each five hours long, included experimentation with a number of art mediums, including music, movement, theatre, painting, and script writing. An exhibition later displayed the children’s artwork to the public.
The program was designed to be:
Therapeutic: The workshop sessions, conducted alongside trained psychologists and social workers, were designed to provide youth with the tools through which anger, frustration, anxiety, and fear could be released.
Expressive: The team designed the sessions to tap into and enhance the children’ creative potential through sessions in which they were able to improvise, compose, and transform their feelings and emotions into artwork.
Embracing a cause: The program was designed to relay a child’s message to the local and international community and generate awareness on the impact of violence.
The program’s pilot phase was evaluated by team members as well as participants and proved to be a tremendous success. Sabreen thus plans to continue the program beyond the initial 40 workshops in 10 various public, private, and UNRWA schools so as to continue providing educational relief for the youth.
