Editorial

Since its establishment in 2003, the Youth Exchange Program, Zajel, has accomplished great achievements in serving the cross cultural communications and mutual understanding among youth participants who represented their culture in the different activities that the Zajel staff has diligently organized. The mission that Zajel espouses transcends the local and the temporary towards creating lasting relations among youth groups in their different international locations. Through the industrious efforts of its staff members, Zajel works to build bridges between cultures through organized visits of volunteers and through summer camps that are attended by young men and women who believe in the value of human understanding, tolerance, peace and democracy and who pledge to fight prejudice, stereotypes and injustice wherever they exist. These young men also share cultural, political, educational and economic experiences that reinforce mutual respect of cultures, beliefs and the mosaic of ethnic backgrounds and multiculturalism.

I have attended activities organized by Zajel and I was pleasantly surprised by the opportunities offered to participants to create friendships and to participate in lectures, visits, tours and debates that aim at introducing the unique Palestinian cultural experience to participants from different countries. International participants usually need to unlearn different stereotypes about Palestinians before they commit their memories to the new realities of Palestinian life that they come to know.

Zajel, therefore, has a message that it needs to disseminate among people of different cultures: Palestinian people are peace loving people who have dreams and wishes and who long to be participants and active contributors to world culture and civilization.

In its mission, Zajel succeeds to recapitulate on the personal experience so that it is promoted to the universal level; Zajel staff, participants and volunteers are able to look into Palestinian life and see the positive, the promising and the humane. In their mission they are aided by a network of friends and associates in several locations who are willing to shoulder all burdens and make all possible attempts to come to Nablus despite the siege that has been imposed on the City by the Israeli Army for the last seven years. The volume of visits and accompanying activities this year was outstanding and the impact that the activities of Zajel were able to create was astounding.

As I admire and appreciate the efforts of the Zajel staff, I wish them success in all their endeavors.

Nabil Alawi, Ph.D
Director,
Public Relations Department
An-Najah National University