‘Seeking Peace and Facing Evil’ Talk Discusses School in Israel Dedicated to Non-violence Between Jews and Arabs
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
September 20, 2001
Kathleen McPartland
530-898-4260
‘Seeking Peace and Facing Evil’ Talk Discusses School in Israel Dedicated to Non-violence Between Jews and Arabs
An administrator from a Palestinian-founded school in Israel dedicated to peace, democracy and peaceful co-existence will speak at California State University, Chico Thursday, Sept. 27, at 8 p.m. in Harlen Adams Theatre (PAC 144).
His address, “Seeking Peace and Facing Evil,” is free and open to the public. It is sponsored by Building Bridges, CSU, Chico’s program promoting acceptance and respect for all people regardless of individual differences.
Gene Sandretto is a volunteer administrator and teacher at the Hope Flowers School in Bethlehem. He is a social worker and mediator from the Bay Area who has lived in Jerusalem and Bethlehem since 1992, working on projects of cooperation between Israelis and Palestinians.
The Hope Flowers School was started in 1984 by Hussein Ibrahim Issa, a Palestinian who had a vision of peace and mutual understanding for Jews and Palestinians. Issa died in 2000, but the school continues under direction of Issa’s widow, daughter and many volunteer teachers and assistants.
Issa lived in a refugee camp for 30 years after the 1948 war. As an obituary on the school’s Web page writes, “Despite all the circumstances of privation that he faced, Hussein did not engage in bitterness toward those around him, nor toward those whom others saw as the evil villains, the occupying Israelis. He came through his early experiences with only a genuine curiosity about these people whom until 1967 he had never even seen.”
The school began with a child care center in 1984, then added primary grades gradually after 1990. Now the school is fully licensed with 125 students in grades K-12. Classes include boys and girls and Muslims and Christians.
Among the school’s emphases are classrooms lessons with a focus on peace and democracy, from discussions on stereotyping to practicing kindness to animals; field trips to Israeli schools and shared projects with Jewish schoolchildren; and invited guest lecturers from many different countries to address the children.
Sandretto earned his B.A. and M.A. in psychology from Stanford University. He also has an M.S.W. degree from San Francisco State University. Before becoming a conflict resolution and mediation consultant, he worked for Alameda County Social Services and was a Children’s Protective Services caseworker.
The increase in Middle East violence has made the Hope Flowers School’s mission more difficult to carry out over the past year, Sandretto said. Although no children or teachers have been injured in the recent violence, the school building has sustained more than 50 bullet holes just since February, he said.
Building Bridges grew out of a CSU, Chico group of faculty, staff and students that has been meeting since August 1999 to discuss increasing tolerance and decreasing violence on campus and in the community. For more information about Building Bridges, please call 530-898-4143.
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