Today’s Good People, Good Works will be presented in Arabic and English, with subtitles in Arabic, Aulacese (Vietnamese), Chinese, English, French, German, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Malay, Mongolian, Persian, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish and Thai.

Welcome, forward-thinking viewers, to another edition of Good People, Good Works. Today’s show is the conclusion of a two-part series on Project Hope, a Palestinian non-profit volunteer organization that provides educational and artistic opportunities for Palestine’s less fortunate young adults and children. The group also conducts practical training sessions in humanitarian relief work to empower the younger generation with hope and skills for the future.

Project Hope, as you can see from the name, is an initiative that tries to give hope to children in this area. Project Hope has been in existence for the last six years. We provide different kinds of activities for the kids.

To accomplish its mission of serving those who primarily live in the city of Nablus, which is north of the West Bank, Project Hope welcomes both local and international volunteers, who are encouraged to share what they are passionate about with the Palestinian youth.

These spirited souls from abroad may lead activities that range from photography classes to volleyball matches. One French volunteer taught a year -long theater class which culminated with the children putting on a short play in French.

We have 200 international volunteers that come to Project Hope a year. And we have more and more demand, more and more people want to come. Most of them come from the English- and French-speaking worlds. So we have a lot of people from the USA. We have a lot of people from Canada, England, Britain and in general, France. So most of them come from these countries.

We have a very small percentage from the Far East. So, I would really like to have more people from the Far East because for Palestinians it's very rare for them to see people from the Far East. It's very important for cultures to meet and for people to know about each others’ cultures as well. And this is one of the dimensions of our work as well.

Through its presence online, Project Hope lets the world know of its laudable initiatives and this helps attract people interested in furthering its work.

I think that now we have solid websites. When you search the Internet, and you want to volunteer in the West Bank, you want to volunteer in Palestine, our website is one of the first to appear.

And we have a second website called NablusGuide.com. So it's a guide to the city of Nablus. And anybody who wants to know information about the city, about the North or the West Bank, logs onto this website. So it's very easy for people to find us and the website is both in English and French.

People find our website and then there is an application where you can volunteer and come here to the West Bank to volunteer. Most people stay around three months, and they come here, and they get enrolled into all our activities. Some people stay six months. Some people want to stay longer.

And so, I think that we give them a good opportunity to know about the culture, to know about the society and Nablus and it's something that is available, and people in Palestine are welcoming, and they like to host people who are coming from the outside.

Indeed, the experience of working and learning at Project Hope has transformed the lives of many volunteers and children.

It's when you see the reaction in the kids’ eyes and how happy they are to be part of the activities it gives you energy and it gives you a motive to want to do this and continue to do this. When you see the people appreciate what you are doing and saying, "Thank you."

And when you see all of these volunteers come from around the world and they come here and they are happy to do the work and then they leave and they are sad because they are leaving. They want to stay longer. And all of this gives you an idea of how important this work is and what you are doing. And it's also about, as I said, bringing people together and closer and all of these issues together give you indications of how important this is.

I’ve seen a lot of people change, whether it's the people that come from the outside or the locals, because we have a big number of local volunteers, people who are university students who come here to volunteer. And as well, in the kids, you see people change. You give people hope There are a lot of things that we are proud of.

We've helped many adults, like university students who came here. When they arrive they thought that they would never finish university, but they finish the university and then that they graduate and they start their masters (degree).

All of this is a success story that we were part of. We have handicapped students as well. And you see how our presence lifts them. You lift them up through what you do, and they come and they say, “Thank you, your presence helped us."

When we return, we’ll learn more about the life-transforming work of Project Hope in Palestine. Please stay tuned to Supreme Master Television.

Welcome back to Good People, Good Works here on Supreme Master Television for our program profiling Project Hope, an organization that is serving the vibrant Palestinian people of Nablus and the surrounding areas. The Project Hope’s dedicated staff sincerely want to uplift their community and are true shining lights of service to others.

My name is Janet Salah. I work as a translator and English language program assistant at the Project Hope here in Nablus. Basically, I translate from English to Arabic any documents we need or when someone needs to talk to any of the international people that work here or come to visit the city. We’re holding courses in the English language for all levels and all at different ages at the center and in partnership with other centers in Nablus city.

And we have teachers from the United States, Canada, Australia, England, different places around the world. Usually native speakers of English teach English classes and they give other classes like drama, art and sports to children in other centers outside Project Hope. We have people from different sectors of society.

I've been working with Project Hope for two months now, and I love it here because it's a very friendly community inside the center. And we have international people from all over the world who are here to volunteer and help the Palestinian people.

Haneen Masri has been with Project Hope since November 2009. This accomplished young woman from Nablus holds bachelor degrees in English and Italian from the University of Jordan in Amman.

I'm working in Project Hope as the English coordinator. So what I do, basically, is arrange schedules for the international volunteers inside Project Hope for our English classes, activities and French. I'm only responsible for the English classes. So as you see here, for example, we have the names of the volunteers here. We have many volunteers from all over the world. Each volunteer works around 20 hours a week. We have two classrooms.

Others are outside Project Hope. We are dealing with many other centers in the city, in the three (refugee) camps in the old city and also other places in Nablus and the surrounding area. We also have local volunteers besides our international volunteers.

So as you can see here in the schedule I'm coordinating with each international volunteer to have a local volunteer to help him in his classes if they need an interpreter to help them in teaching English, translating, and to help the students, especially at the beginning levels.

Basically we don’t depend on books in our teaching, teachers use their own, experience and they prepare their own lessons. But in case they want some help, we have many books like here, for example, there are some books in French, some in English that stay here. We have those materials also to help.

In March 2010, Safaa, a Project Hope staff member, represented the organization at the Anna Lindh Forum, a gathering in Barcelona, Spain of those seeking to bolster intercultural dialogue between peoples. Safaa made a presentation at the meeting about Project Hope’s “Bridge to the World” program, where Palestinian children create a blog in a foreign language to connect to others abroad.

I’m a French program coordinator. I’m preparing something for French classes. This is related to verbs, to verbs in French. We prepare these things for children. Today we will have a class in the Balata (refugee camp), so I help the volunteers in doing the materials for these classes.

As we look into the lives of people, we see that peace is truly in the hearts of all.

I think it’s all about sharing the culture. We want to show the world that we're just people who are trying to live their normal life, to be part of the globe, to get an education; get a good job, to leave a good future for the next generation.

Here are some closing thoughts from Project Hope’s director, Abdulhakim Sabbah:

The good thing about the Palestinian society is that you have solidarity between people. So, if I have money and my neighbor doesn't have money, I can help my neighbor. And we still have these kinds of ethics of solidarity and people helping the neighbors, people helping the family. And I think that this is what helps us in the difficult times.

I want to say to the people, come here to Palestine if you can come and help in any way. It would be welcome, to help you, to host you.

For transforming Palestinian children’s lives through learning, Supreme Master Ching Hai is honoring Project Hope with the Shining World Caring Award and US$10,000 to further their loving work.

We would like to wish the volunteers and staff of Project Hope, including Director Sabbah, Janet Salah, Haneen Masri, and Safaa, many more joyous experiences in creating an ever brighter future for Palestine. May you all continue to share hope with others in Allah’s eternal love.

For more details on Project Hope,
please visit www.ProjectHope.ps
To learn more about the city of Nablus,
please visit www.NablusGuide.com

Thank you for joining us today on Good People, Good Works. Up next is The World Around Us, right after Noteworthy News. May your days be filled with the grace of Heaven.