A. M. Qattan Foundation’s Child Centre in Gaza (CCG), organized an “intergeneration dialogue” initiative, which was attended by twenty children and twenty senior people at Dar Suad Al-A’zamy Association.
The children-led initiative aimed to create a new space for intergenerational dialogue to boost exchange of ideas and learning about the habits and traditions of the ancestors.
The children in the initiative narrated the story “Hakawati – story-tellter” and discussed it with their elders. A senior participant told a story to the children generating interactive social dialogue that involved children and elders in a rich interaction combining talks about the past and the present.
As part of the Centre’s cooperation with Dar Suad Al-A’azamy Association, it held recently four trainings with senior people from Senior People Care Association, Dar Suad Al-A’zamy throughout November 2017. The training was led by coordinator Hiba Al-Agha.
The workshops addressed senior people about the importance of story-telling and introduced them to several story-telling techniques. Participants were trained on techniques of classical story-telling and the importance of intonations and use of facial expressions and body language.
Trainees learned about telling stories in loud voice and became acquainted with several new stories.
Speaking of his impression on this experience, Abu Al-Abed Siam said, “the workshops were amazing, mainly for us as senior people. We benefited a lot from the training on narration. While we are teachers and instructors, we acquired different skills and a new expertise that we can convey to our children and grand-children.”
As for Um Wael Muheisen, she said, ‘I felt I was regaining memories of the past; the training motivated me further to tell stories to my grand-children.”
The workshops closed with training on narration of stories using puppets with preparation of different scripts. The trainings also included a number of songs for children.