Summer Camp 2025
Dates: 04.07.2025 - 08.07.2025
In May 2025, 4 Youth Leaders from Musalaha’s Young Adults Project in Bethlehem were appointed as Camp Coordinators under the supervision of Project Manager, Saleem Anfous, a local theologian, activist, and father. Together, they began recruiting campers from across the Palestinian community. Throughout May and June, the Youth Leaders met weekly at Musalaha’s Reconciliation Center in Bethlehem to organize camp logistics, including venue and transport contracts, pool rental, activity planning, and budgeting.
By the end of June, the team had recruited 27 local Camp Counsellors, all Muslim and Christian Palestinians from Bethlehem, Jerusalem, and other areas in the West Bank, as well as 4 international volunteers from New Zealand and the United States. The counsellors were divided among three age groups (5–6, 7–9, and 10–12), with at least six volunteers assigned to each group in addition to the main teacher. This ensured close supervision and opportunities to build meaningful relationships throughout the week. In total, 105 children participated in the camp, evenly divided between boys and girls. Approximately 70% of campers came from Christian families and 30% from Muslim families.
Registration and Training
On July 3, the day before camp began, staff and volunteers prepared the school venue and welcomed campers and their families for final registration. Families received schedules and details, while students collected their group-colored t-shirts, water bottles, and hats. Counsellors wore white shirts to distinguish themselves as leaders. The Core Committee of the Young Adults program facilitated the registration process and provided families with the final information they needed.
After registration, the Camp Coordinators and Saleem Anfous led a training session for counsellors and helpers. Many of the volunteers were returning counsellors from previous years. The session included icebreakers, role clarification, review of the weekly schedule, and an introduction to the camp theme. The theme of the 2025 camp, “We Plant Hope,” emphasized resilience and reconciliation through activities that engaged body, mind, and spirit. Rooted in the biblical vision of restoration, that one day God will reconcile all creation and humanity to Himself and to one another. The theme offered children and leaders alike a spiritual framework for hope. The imagery of planting drew on Palestinian traditions of cultivating the land, with the olive tree featured on camp shirts as a symbol of life, community, and continuity. Just as olive trees provide oil, food, and fuel, they also represent the promise of renewal. In a week filled with learning, play, and reflection, the theme “We Plant Hope” encouraged participants to see hope not only as an idea but as something tangible, nurtured through relationships, faith, and shared experience.
Camp Activities
Each morning began with a lively welcome as counsellors greeted campers with silly string, flags, music, bubbles, and other playful activities. Campers then lined up with their groups before rotating through daily lessons focused on body, mind, and spirit. Body lessons included cooking classes and sports; mind lessons emphasized mental health through art, music, and discussions about emotions; spirit lessons featured reflections on hope and planting cacti as tangible symbols of growth.
Each day also offered a large group activity, including a circus performance by the Birzeit Circus, a bounce house and water day, a petting zoo, and Palestinian cultural celebrations. A midweek trip to the pool was a highlight, allowing children to enjoy time together in a fun and relaxed environment.
Impact
The camp created a safe, joyful, and meaningful space where children could form friendships across community and faith divides. Through games, lessons, and cultural activities, campers practiced teamwork, creativity, emotional reflection, and openness to new experiences. The theme “We Plant Hope” was woven throughout the week, helping both campers and leaders to experience hope in tangible ways—through shared meals, friendships, and activities of body, mind, and spirit.
Thus, the children embarked successfully on the first stage of reconciliation “Beginning Relationships”, as they diminished stereotypes, increased understanding and found a healthy way to deal with their trauma, grief, and prolonged stress. These first steps will lead them to make different decisions later in life, and for them and their families to stay involved in Musalaha throughout their life cycle, whether with the camp, or in another Musalaha project.
Goals and Outcomes
Musalaha receives feedback from parents, staff, cultural organizations, churches, volunteers and other stakeholders. The camp leaders make sure to meet with all parties to receive constructive feedback. In addition, Musalaha staff members call a randomized list of parents and ask them questions based on Musalaha’s questionnaire forms. The gathered feedback is then analyzed and presented at the annual strategic meeting with Musalaha’s Board.
Every camp day was concluded with a feedback session, attended by all Camp Helpers, Counsellors, and Coordinators, under supervision and direction of the Project Manager.
The Children Summer Camp 2025 pursues the following objectives:
To strengthen friendships across community and faith divides by encouraging children to share daily life, meals, and play with peers from different backgrounds, cultivating bonds that extend beyond the camp setting.
To provide a safe space for children to process their experiences under Military Occupation through play, storytelling, and reflection, supporting resilience and fostering hope for their futures.
To cultivate leadership and responsibility among older campers and junior counsellors by involving them in planning, mentoring, and guiding activities, thereby strengthening their capacity as future community role models.
Recorded outcome for Goal 1:
By the end of July, over 80% of the children had built relationships with other campers across faiths and realities in the larger Bethlehem area (urbanized areas, rural towns and refugee camps). 60% of the children reported they wanted to stay in touch with their friends after the camp and encouraged their parents to make contact.
Videos and pictures have been shared on Musalaha’s Social Media Accounts.
Recorded outcome for Goal 2:
The emotional response of the 2025 camp trajectory is an enhanced acceptance and respect toward “the other,” grounded in reconciliation teachings and implicitly shaped by biblical principles of love, compassion, and empathy toward neighbors across community and faith divides. Children are encouraged to challenge and unlearn negative stereotypes, fostering openness and mutual trust. To measure this goal, Musalaha developed age-appropriate questionnaires for the beginning and end of camp that tracked attitude change.
Reported outcome for Goal 3:
The indicator to measure goal 3 is the retention rate, which is measured over time. Based on our previous data, when children reach 12 years old and can no longer participate in the camp, we have a nearly 90% return rate to volunteer as helpers and counsellors. Furthermore, at least 80% of our participants in youth and young adults’ programs started with Musalaha as campers.
This year, there were several new Camp Counsellors who surpassed the maximum age to participate as a Camper.
Addressing the Conflict for Children
The children who attended Musalaha’s Summer Camp live in a reality deeply shaped by ongoing conflict. The war in Gaza stretched into its twenty-first month in July, with images of destruction and suffering constantly surrounding the students. In the West Bank, military operations, road closures, new gates, and frequent arrests continue to disrupt family life and create a pervasive sense of insecurity. Just before the camp, the region was shaken by the Israel–Iran 12-day war, during which ballistic missiles and air-raid sirens could be heard throughout the day. Children hear sirens from nearby settlements signaling people to take shelter in bomb shelters, yet the students do not have access to such protective spaces in their own homes. For many children, these circumstances intensify fear, uncertainty, and emotional exhaustion within their families and communities.
Against this backdrop, the Musalaha Summer Camp, “We Plant Hope,” provided children with a safe space for play, learning, and friendship across community and faith divides. As the first interfaith initiative of its kind in Bethlehem, the camp offered more than recreation: it nurtured resilience through shared meals, cooperative games, creative arts, and physical activities. Through these experiences, children were guided toward healthier, non-violent ways of expressing emotion and were introduced to the foundations of reconciliation. The camp created moments of joy and stability, giving children tangible experiences of hope that stood in contrast to the fear and uncertainty present in their daily lives.
