Paul Calvert talks with Najwa Sahhar-Sayegh from Jeel Al Amal, a school and children's home, for the protection and care of needy and orphan children throughout Palestine.

Najwa: Actually you will be amazed. I have experienced the love of the children, the older boys and how they care for the little ones. Last summer I went to the sea shore with the children for a picnic and I was amazed to see how the older boys were watching the little ones. They were taking care of them wherever they went. Also when it is time for dinner they lay the table, help the little ones and supervise so it is more of a homely atmosphere really.

Paul: You also have a school here, a mixed school of girls and boys. Is that unique for this area?

Najwa: Actually yes it is, because the majority tend to separate, but we don't want that. They are sitting in the classroom side by side, boys and girls. Also the majority of the workforce here are women. 90% of the staff working in Jeel Al Amal are women, because we want to empower women to have jobs in society and we don't tend to separate them at all.

Paul: What sort of skills do the children learn?

Najwa: All kinds of life skills. Now we have a programme for the children in the boarding section. They go to an organisation in Bethany, it is sponsored by the French Islamic relief and they go there and learn life skills. It is very important when the children leave Jeel Al Amal that they are empowered to live in society, encouraged and we therefore promote their self-esteem to face whatever they need to face after they leave.

Paul: What sort of needs do the boys have in the boys home?

Najwa: First of all they need love and care, they need our attention. They need to feel that we are their family, the family that they have lost and have never known. It really transforms their whole being. We are now working on renovating the boarding section, we have already managed to do that with the dining room and with the kitchen.

Children have lots of needs, it's a cycle. You can't say we are looking after them in terms of food, in terms of clothing and overlooking their other needs. It's a cycle, they have to practice their talents, they have to meet other people in their community, they have to go to tournaments outside the home and meet people. So it's like a cycle.

Paul: Is it important that the children get a good education in the home?

Najwa: Yes it's very important. The founders of the home, my parents Alice and Basil Sahhar, believed in education as the only weapon to help them for a better future. So being educated is the only thing that empowers them.

This school is for low income families, so they wanted private education for people who cannot afford to pay for private education and this has continued up to this date.

Paul: Education is important and some children will want to go to university, is that very difficult for them here when perhaps they don't have parents or family?

Najwa: Yes they have depended on us for their whole lives, from little children and once they finish their schooling they want to go to university, so we try to help them as much as we can. Now they have the spring board to go on and study in the universities, but we don't have enough money in Jeel Al Amal to fully sponsor them. So we reach out to friends, to people who want to sponsor the education of a boy who has finished his schooling and succeeded in the last year of exams and wants to go to university. So we have included that in the core elements of the home and people can donate to educate a child in university afterwards, so we don't leave them alone we try to help them as much as we can. The majority of the staff, I have to mention, are the children who have finished schooling in Jeel Al Amal, they came here as three-year-old boys and now they are working in Jeel Al Amal.

Paul: Do you have children coming to the school with disabilities?