The  Hakawi society for culture and arts, in partnership with  Pal Think for Strategic Studies and FXB France, concluded the “Marionette Puppets  In Every House” initiative, as it organized a play with Marionette’s puppets on the impact of domestic violence and child development in the presence of about 200 children in the Gaza Strip. This came within the project of “promoting a culture of non-violence” that seeks to disseminate the culture of non-violence philosophy as a life approach.

The play was titled salutation; its story is about two astronauts from space wanted to be friends with two children from Earth, but the two children were subjected to domestic violence and bullying. As a result of this play, children’s behaviour toward their families and friends changed in a good way. For instance, they learned forgiveness, principles and values that disseminate the culture of dialogue and community peace.

The initiative coordinator, Mr Mahdi Krera, said, the idea of this initiative came from our observation to the increasing psychological pressures and domestic violence on children and women, especially in the quarantine period according to the COVID-19 crisis. He also added, the initiative has a four-month duration; the team trained the first month on how to make a  puppet and how to choose its appearance, on choosing the right songs, and stage decorations.

He also noted that, during the last three months, we have been training, we have implemented the first show at the Al Amal Institute for orphans in Gaza. While the second one was implemented in the Department of Women’s programs in Deir El-Balah camp, which highlighted the high rates of domestic violence and squabbling.

He also pointed out, due to the closure of markets because of quarantine, the high poverty rate, especially since thousands of families in Gaza depend on daily income, which has clearly caused the most basic problems of families to rise, increasing the problems between parents, brothers and sisters and children. Anyway,  the most affected groups are children and women.

It is worth to mention that power outages make the situation even harder; for people have nothing to do during the day and kids can not go out and play with their peers. The only thing that both can do is surfing the internet and using smartphones. That’s why during the shoes we talked about kids using the internet and technology and how it affects him/ her in a good or bad way.

Then he continued,  we will keep on with these plays and shows within our next initiative since it is vital and we found a wonderful interaction of children because the Maronite puppets are always the closest and most flexible in expressing sensitive social issues. Besides,  all people love it despite their age. 

After that, he concluded by saying that the idea is how much close we are from our children how much they can be creative.  And once they are subjected to violence they will not care anymore about their skills and abilities. He also thanked Pal-Think for giving the opportunity to target children and aware them about such concepts and ideas.

Moreover, Maria Mosa, aged 12, said that the show taught her not to give up or to mock anyone. Besides how to support people when they do good things and be kind to them when they are not. Only by this we can support all and make sure that they continue the hard work.

Furthermore, Abdallah Fayyad, aged 11, said that he learned there is no need to mock anyone and it is good to corporate with others. While Mohammad Fayyad, aged 12, stated that he learned how to use internet in a good way not only for video games. He also noted that mocking others is not the right thing to do yet cooperation is.