School of Joy was founded by Father Mamdouh Abusada in 1998.

He was working at a family centre in Bethlehem, when parents started asking him for help. Their children were being excluded from schools who couldn’t cope with them. They were saying they must go to a special needs school instead – but there weren’t any of those.

With no school place, these children would have no education and little hope for the future. In fact, many Palestinian children with disabilities end up as street children, roaming around while their parents work. In some cases, having a child with a disability carries a stigma and they can be abandoned or shut away at home alone.

God opened a way through many challenges and School of Joy was born.

In the first year, they had 13 students. This year there are now 78, with a waiting list almost as long. The problems of the covid pandemic and a long period of strikes by teachers in the state schools have left many more children needing a different type of education. The children come from all religious backgrounds. Some are simply behind in their education due to trauma or undiagnosed problems with their vision or hearing.

Others have cerebral palsy, autism, severe dyslexia or ADHD. Some travel 25 miles from Hebron to attend – because there’s still no other provision like this anywhere in the West Bank. Sadly those students who need to travel in from further afield are not able to come currently because it is dangerous to travel in the heightened tensions post-October 7th.

This vital school receives no state funding, and the majority of the students’ families are too poor to pay any fees.

Friends of the Holy Land has helped to fund School of Joy since 2009.

Find out more here:

http://schoolofjoy.org/