Inter Campus in Israel and Palestine, a project full of surprises

TelAviv - The integration tournament, an event scheduled on every annual visit for the boys and girls of the Israel and Palestine project, but also for the coaches, is always a bit of a gamble. You don’t know who will be able to come and participate until the very day itself, everything is prepared but unexpected events related to the area’s socio-political situation are often lurking. 

Perhaps it’s also because of this unpredictable nature that every moment of sharing and playing together develops an extraordinary significance as was the case in the last big celebration on the pitch where for the first time the Israeli girls, young female African refugees from Tel Aviv and the Arab girls from Beit Safafa were split into fived mixed teams and came together on the pitch.

There was also a great triangular tournament for the children of 2010 with three mixed teams of children from the centre of Tel Aviv and children from Beit Safafa, which created a great mix of refugees, Arabs, Israelis and Americans.

There was also a lot of enthusiasm for the five team tournament for under-10s and those over-11 made up of children exclusively from Abu Tor and Talpiot (East Jerusalem) who competed in mixed teams and played for almost two hours.

Special thanks goes to all the enthusiastic staff on the pitch: the tireless Buma; Ali from Beit Safafa; Dalya the coach from Jerusalem; Arturo, Mohamed and Abed, all coaches from Jerusalem; Nofar from the NGO Good Neighbours; Orli and Yorai, both with a past in the Elifelet Association and now active in Inter Campus; Emil, the coach from Tel Aviv; and of course to the mass of parents who came to support, take photos, help on the pitch and behind the scenes!