The South Galway harbour of Kinvara marks the opening today an exhibition of poetry by Palestinian children caught in the conflict in Gaza.
Entitled “Moon Tell Me Truth”, the exhibition and accompanying book represents the work of children aged between nine and 15 years of age from Palestine Argentina, India and Spain.
In the case of the Kinvara exhibition, it focuses on the work of Palestinian children – two of whom were killed just over a year ago not long after they had written their poems.
Palestinian schoolchild Fatema Saidam (9) didn’t live long enough to know her poem would be exhibited abroad, as she and her family were killed on November 18th, 2023 during the early stages of the Israeli bombardment of Gaza.
She wrote:
“Eyes are for looking and seeing sun
Tongues are for greeting and saying fun
Legs are for walking slowing and also run
Hands are for shaking with friends not for
Shooting gun”
In that same month, Obada Mohammad Abu Oda, who also submitted a piece, lost his life.
The exhibition and book were initiated by the Hands Up project, a British charity formed back in 2016 by Nick Bilbrough.
A teacher and teacher trainer, Bilbrough and his team of volunteers have used online storytelling and art over the past eight years to work with young Syrian and Palestinians in refugee camps and their teachers.
The Hands Up project also connects children around the world with young people in Palestine, through online interaction, drama and storytelling activities to “promote mutual understanding and English language skills”.
Annie Rozario of the Kinvara Palestine Solidarity Group said that the invite to the south Galway harbour came about after a Mayo contact, Insaf Ben Othmane Hamrouni, heard about the exhibition.
Among the poems which will be on display is one written by 13-year-old Roaa Al-Masri from Gazra, with the lines “Wipe out that sadness and weave the Dress of impossible from the tears”.
Figures recently published by Oxfam give a “conservative” estimate of over 11,000 children and 6,000 women killed in Gaza by the Israeli military over the last 12 months.
UNICEF has said that on average, one Palestinian child was killed in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, every two days since October 2023 - a nearly three-and-a-half-fold increase from the previous nine months
“We know two of these children whose work is in the exhibition have died, but with the continuing displacement of so many families to so many safe zones, it is very hard to know the fate of all of these children, “Rozario says.
Children with the Kinvara Community Orchestra will sing “A Song for Peace”, accompanied by Gary O Briain, at the exhibition opening in Kinvara’s Courthouse this evening, December 18th, and Noah Pettit Navarro (10) will read a poem he wrote about Gaza.
Kinvara was the first town in Ireland to secure agreement by all businesses there to boycott Israeli products back in 2014, and the community established links with Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank over a decade ago.
Young Palestinian football players with the Al-Hilal Football Academy visited Galway in 2016 and 2017, and some promising young players have died in the current conflict, including brothers Mahmoud and Mohamed Abu Dan, who were killed with the members of their family.
Also among the casualties was young Muhammad Khalifa “who lit up the football fields and our hearts when he was here”, the Kinvara Palestine Solidarity Group says.
Nick Bilbrough of the Hands Up project said he is “delighted to see the work of these
remarkable children reaching wider audiences ,and am especially pleased to be able to share
their poems with the people of Kinvara who I know have for many years shown their
solidarity with the people of Palestine ”.
The exhibition in The Courthouse, Kinvara continues until Sunday January 5th from 11am to 5pm (closed December 25th and 26th).
Poems will also be on display in shop windows forming a poetry trail throughout the harbour village.
Copies of the book, Moon Tell Me Truth with a foreword by Alice Oswald, professor of poetry at Oxford University, will also be for sale in Kinvara.
One of the submissions from Palestinian children to the exhibition and book "Moon Tell Me Truth", which opens in the Courthouse, Kinvara, Co Galway on December 18th, and runs until January 5th.
