ActionAid Palestine to Support the Youth Initiative “From Generation to Generation” to Revive Palestinian Folk Heritage as a Tool to Promote Mental Health and Community Cohesion
Occupied Palestinian Territory – Tulkarem – Displaced women from Nur Shams and Tulkarm refugee camps, who are living under difficult conditions and facing psychological and social challenges, come together with other women in the village of Iktaba in Tulkarm Governorate in the northern West Bank. They participate in heritage-based, artistic, and psychosocial activities implemented by the youth initiative “From Generation to Generation – Popular Games as a Tool for Psychological Release.” This initiative provides a new space for healing and collective joy.
The youth team “Buqjah” led the initiative with support from ActionAid Palestine, the Dalia Association, Iktaba Sports Club, and the Village Council. The initiative aimed to provide logistical support and community spaces, strengthening community ownership and ensuring wide participation of women and families from Tulkarm and Nur Shams camps and the village of Iktaba. Through this process, Palestinian folk heritage was revived and utilized as a tool to promote mental health and social cohesion.
Since the launch of the initiative on 15 October until 22 December 2025, five intensive workshops were implemented, including group activities and traditional games, culminating in an open day that brought together more than 50 families. The initiative went beyond interactive workshops, transforming into a safe space where women could reconnect with their childhoods and rebuild human relationships amid displacement and the breakdown of social ties.
The “Buqjah” team left a clear mark on the design and implementation of the activities, presenting an inspiring model of community leadership. The team transformed a simple idea using popular games into an integrated psychosocial support program, transferring folk culture from one generation to another and making it a means of creating safety, belonging, and resilience in the face of pressure.
Mudar Zahran, one of the youth involved in the Buqjah initiative, said: “Every Palestinian has a curiosity of a young child motivating him /her to search for joy longing for details that have been taken from us due to the rapid and overwhelming pace of events. In Buqjeh, games, stories, and folk chants became tools for shared release. The participant is not a recipient , she only lives the experience herself: she plays, narrates, and sings, creating a real space for expression and emotional release, as well as a space for cultural exchange and strengthening belonging.”
During the five workshops, participants engaged in traditional games such as tug of war, hide-and-seek, seven stones, hopscotch, and marbles, alongside psychosocial support sessions and the singing of traditional lullabies and folk chants. This gave women the opportunity to reconnect with childhood memories and build new relationships based on familiarity and trust.
The initiative also included an open day during which women prepared traditional Buqjah bundles, designed corners resembling old homes, and prepared traditional foods. Through this open day, women embodied the Palestinian spirit of “al-‘awneh” (cooperation ), making collective work part of the healing process itself. The open day marked a major turning point, as families and children participated, allowing the experience to move into homes and become a daily practice that restores warmth to the collective memory.
The initiative succeeded in creating a safe space for expression, relaxation, and building strong bonds between village women and displaced women. Many of the initiative’s activities contributed to reviving heritage practices, strengthening shared identity, reinforcing mutual support within the community, and enhancing social trust among the targeted groups.
Mrs. Khitam Ammara, one of the beneficiaries, said: “These workshops gave us the opportunity to gather again and restore the warmth of relationships we had long missed. They took us back to beautiful memories despite the pain. The workshops provided real psychological relief,I felt that I could breathe again. There is now bonding and solidarity among us, and we have returned to feeling like one family.”
For her, the initiative was not merely recreational, but a story of collective healing and renewed hope.
The initiative seeks to strengthen the role of youth in community recovery plans and enhance community resilience through youth-led action that responds to urgent community needs. The “Buqjah” team became a living model of youth-led initiatives with tangible impact. Young people took responsibility for planning, implementation, and communication, acting as a bridge between institutions and the community, and successfully transforming a simple idea into a deeply human experience.
This initiative demonstrates that youth leadership is capable of creating opportunities for healing and social integration under the most difficult circumstances, and that folk heritage is not merely memory, but a form of intergenerational healing. Youth play a pivotal role in supporting different generations both older and younger and in building bridges of human and social connection, especially amid rapid societal change. They can reconnect older people with wider social circles, strengthen their sense of value and historical role, document their stories, benefit from their experiences, and pass their knowledge on to younger generations. In doing so, older people become active contributors to community life rather than isolated or marginalized. Youth also help meet their daily and emotional needs, creating a warm environment that restores the spirit of solidarity and ‘awneh,(cooperation ) making intergenerational connection a pathway to protecting cultural heritage and building bridges of inner peace between past and present.
About ActionAid International
ActionAid International is a global federation working with more than 41 million people across over 72 of the world’s poorest countries. We strive for a world founded on justice and sustainability, where everyone enjoys a life of dignity, freedom, and a world free from poverty and oppression. Our work focuses on achieving social justice, gender equality, and eradicating poverty.
ActionAid began its work in Palestine in 2007 to strengthen the resilience of the Palestinian people, grounded in their right to freedom, justice, and self-determination. In Palestine, ActionAid implements various programmes through engagement with Palestinian communities, youth groups, and women. We aim to empower women and young people, enhance their effective civic and political participation, deepen their understanding of their rights, and mobilize them to engage in collective action to address rights violations resulting from prolonged occupation. Additionally, we work to strengthen their leadership capacities and support them in practicing active citizenship by holding authorities and other duty bearers accountable.
For more information, please contact:
Riham Jafari
Communications and Advocacy coordinator – ActionAid Palestine
