Promises: Children’s Perspective

Promises is an award winning documentary that explores the issues that divide Israelis and Palestinians – land, history and religion.  It is the story of seven children before their teenage years, who all live within 15-20 minutes from one another – but have completely different perspectives and experiences.  As a reality-based ‘point of view’ documentary, the camera follows the children through their lives – with ups and downs – until some decide that they would like to change the direction of their story – and meet.  That meeting is both emotionally powerful and politically motivating.

Along with the viewing of the video, students will answer questions on their online discussion forum.  In addition, students will begin to explore the issues of conflict in the Middle East.

Here’s the link to the sites for the award-winning documentary we’ll view: 1) http://www.promisesproject.org/index.html, 2) http://www.pbs.org/pov/promises/, 3) from the Office of Jewish Affairs at UMASS Amherst http://www.umass.edu/jewish/programs/promises_02/, 4) from Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Promises_%28film%29, and 5) an interview with Faraj, once he came to the US, http://intravelmag.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=387&Itemid=10036

For resources on this issue, please check out the following links:  http://israelipalestinian.procon.org/viewtopic.asp, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli-Palestinian_conflict, http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/static/in_depth/middle_east/2002/voices/

Tell me what you think.