West Bank participants study in the classroom.

The Department of State’s SportsUnited division, an office of the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, brought a 10-member delegation of Palestinian youth officials to Washington, D.C. and Atlanta for a two-week program designed to enhance their skills in oversight and management of youth centers. The three women and seven men spent their time exchanging ideas and information on every aspect of management and program development.

In Atlanta, the delegation spent two days at the National Headquarters of the Boys and Girls Club of America learning about the roles of center administrators, and then visited two local Boys and Girls Clubs to see theory put to practice.  They also visited the Roosevelt Warm Springs Institute for Rehabilitation to observe the Institute’s range of programs for adults and children with disabilities. In Washington, D.C., they continued to see American approaches to recreation center management; the highlight of which was time spent at DC Scores, a program where education and sports are combined. Rana Awada, Director of the Jabal Al Nar Sports Club, acknowledged, “I would never have thought to combine a writing program with soccer.  This is a most imaginative program.”

The group met with officials from the U.S. Agency for International Development responsible for supporting the building of the four Youth Development and Recreation Centers on the West Bank. The members of the delegation expressed gratitude to the Department of State for the program. Walid Atatra from the Ministry of Youth and Sports summed up the group’s reaction to the program by stating, “We have received so much information and so many new ideas in these two weeks that it will take two months absorb it all.”