CO.RE - COmmunities REsilience. Strengthening the resilience of Palestinian communities settled in the West Bank (Palestine)

Emergency initiative to protect the most vulnerable Palestinian population in Area C, East Jerusalem and Gaza Strip - AICS Italian Agency for Development Cooperation

Scientific coordinator: Prof.  Elena Pacetti

Project Team: Alessandro Soriani, Daniele Castellani, Federica Zanetti

Action Type: Emergency initiative for the protection of refugees and population at risk of displacement in the area C of the West Bank and in East Jerusalem

Applicant: GVC onlus  (IT)

Partners: Educaid (IT), Department of Education Studies “Giovanni Maria Bertin” of University of Bologna (IT).

N.r Partners: 3

Partners’ Countries: IT, PS

UNIBO’s role: Partner

Project Duration : 9 months

Start Date: 01/07/2017      

End Date: 01/06/2018 (extension)

Status: closed

Total Budget: 446.870 euro

Unibo Budget: 8.500 euro

Project’s Topics: Palestinian communities, resilience, human rights

Description: Palestinian communities in the West Bank are victims of threats and violations of their rights, which leads them to a progressive isolation. This project uses an integrated and participatory protection

approach, through the application of the Community Based Protection Approach (CPA) methodology in order to prevent and alleviate the negative effects of a coercive context and increase the beneficiary population’s resilience. The actions include the identification of threats, mobilisation and community

empowerment, supply and distribution of materials and access to essential services in the educational, water and sanitary domains, psychosocial and supportive services, emergency response to demolitions and violations perpetrated by the settlers, and advocacy activities both at national and international level.

In that context the action of the Department of Education Studies of the University of Bologna focuses on technical assistance to the representatives of the Palestinian Ministry of Education and Higher Education (MoEHE), on the themes of inclusive education and on psychosocial support in emergency situations.

More specifically the team of expert from Bologna, coordinated and facilitated the design and the construction – together with the local subjects involved – of an Index for Inclusion and Empowerment. The tool, inspired by the Index for Inclusion proposed by Booth & Ainscow, has the aim to being a support for teachers, school principals by helping them understand student’s needs and the issues connected to the promotion of inclusive school’s policies. Policies that promote the approach of empowerment, which involve the local communities of the schools, and which are consistent with all the specificities of the contexts where the schools are.

Two directorates, in particular, have been involved by the project: Hebron and Tubas. The experimentation saw teachers, school principals, inclusive advisors and other key stakeholders participating together to in-loco training events about inclusion, empowerment and about the design, the implementation and the practical use of the new Index for Inclusion and Empowerment.