Hello! I'm Connie, an international intern at Tomorrow's Youth Organization (TYO), a global leader in child education and youth empowerment in Nablus. This summer, I embarked on a remarkable journey - my first ever summer camp experience with TYO. The initial English classes with my enthusiastic first-grade students were a whirlwind of excitement and anticipation. With the dual challenge of memorizing 30 new names and ensuring they received an enjoyable, educational experience, I was feeling a bit overwhelmed, but in a good way!    The students quickly got used to me a ..read more

My name is Raghad, I studied marketing at An-Najah National University. This year I participated in TYO's Youth Entrepreneurship program. I used to volunteer with TYO and when I heard about the Youth Entrepreneurship program I decided to apply. My team and I are working on a tourism application called "Story Out". I wanted to start a business that would allow me to focus on the tourism sector, particularly tourist monuments. I also want to promote tourism in Palestine; to make it a popular destination for international tourists. We wish to own a successful business to prove ourselves and beco ..read more

Nusaiba, Palestinian entrepreneur & small business owner "Through my business, I want to become an inspiring woman for the youth and make them believe that they can also become an inspiration. Also, to build a well-known and trustworthy business. That when it is mentioned people immediately say yes, she's doing great work. And of course, I want to be financially independent and be fully responsible for myself. It’s important for women entrepreneurs to prove to themselves first that they can do what others can and even more. This is very important because some people underestimate what wo ..read more

  It was the Tuesday of my second week into teaching, and I was finally beginning to get the hang of it all… or so I thought. For today’s exercise, we were tackling a semester-long project I had invented and coined as the “Verb Monster” activity. Thinking myself quite clever, I’d designed the activity to teach my students simple sentence structure, which included three characters: the Verb Monster, Subject Snowman, and Object Caterpillar, all characters of whom had personality traits that aligned with the rules of their sentence placement. For example, the Verb Monster was shy and always ..read more

  Walking through the streets of Nablus, it is difficult not to notice all the children. There are children playing soccer and cycling in the streets, children selling watermelon and cucumbers in the Old City, and children laughing with friends on steps to pass the time. As I look at them, most of the children look back at me with big, curious eyes. Most walk by me cautiously, but some are confident and approach me to ask me where I am from. Few smile at me, but if I smile first, all of them flash huge, goofy smiles back. When I found out I had been accepted to an internship program in P ..read more

  During my time at TYO I have learnt a lot; and I learnt the most during the craft activities in my classes. Teaching grade 1 during the summer camp meant I was able to dedicate lots of the time to simple activities that would help the children engage with the topics we were discussing. Whether that was basic English words or the life cycle of butterflies, drawing activities and songs were the activities the students would throw themselves into and enjoy the most. But what struck me with each of these activities, whether in groups or solo projects, was the apparent fear the children fel ..read more

“Use your words.” It’s a phrase I heard countless times as a kid, and one that naturally slipped into my vocabulary as an adult. Yet after the first few weeks of teaching an energetic class of second graders at TYO, I started to feel like a broken record repeating this adage of the past. Every accidental nudge, misunderstanding, or interpersonal issue snowballed into a larger conflict my team would need to mediate, and encouraging students to “use their words” often resulted in further demands or accusations, or at best, halfhearted apologies. We were quickly being drained of time and energy ..read more

Chambri (left) and Laura (right) Introducing our fall 2019 International Interns. Our interns Chambri and Laura have arrived to Nablus to support our programs for children, women, and youth. Learn more about them. Chambri is from Hawaii (US) and finished her Bachelor’s degree in English Literature. In 2018, Chambri’s commitment to Peace and Conflict studies led her to work with refugee communities along the ex-Balkan migration route with Serbia’s Asylum Protection Center, while helping implement workshops for women. Working with TYO is Chambri’s dream internship, and hopefully the precursor t ..read more

For any of us who have travelled, the excitement and diversity of our world never ceases to amaze and drive us. However, not everyone has this privilege. This realization immediately motivated the core focus of my summer course’s design: I wanted to share how exciting and different the world around us is, in a way that fosters my Grade 5 students’ self-awareness and curiosity. The Grade 5 students proudly show off their work on football players and their countries’ flags. As I began planning my classes, I felt overwhelmed: where do you start to teach about the whole wide world? On day 1, I st ..read more

Every second grader hates to lose. Building a healthy relationship with defeat is not easy for adults, much less for 7-year-olds. At TYO’s summer program, youth learn critical socioemotional skills through play. This involves lots of engagement, excitement, and fun, but with games also comes the possibility of losing. When students are “out” of the game, they often stalk back to the sidelines, sometimes stomping their feet, crossing their arms, pouting their lips, or all of the above. But in our second-grade class, we make sure there is a teacher or volunteer at the sidelines, every time, tel ..read more