15+ years supporting Palestine’s children

Every child has the right to play in safety

Play is fundamental to a child’s enjoyment of their childhood, to their health, and to their development.

Hope and Play is a UK charity dedicated to bringing hope and play to the lives of Palestinian children who are denied both. We build spaces to play, create learning opportunities and provide them with trauma support.

We operate in the villages and refugee camps under occupation in the Gaza Strip, the Palestinian West Bank, and in Lebanon. 

We’re registered with the UK Charity Commission No. 1125609.

Our Story

15+ years of building hope

Hope and Play was established in 2008 by Iyas AlQasem, who remains a Hope and Play trustee alongside Saskia Marsh and Tony Rahman. Iyas, who is of Palestinian descent, is a former executive in a Fortune 500 company. Saskia is a conflict reduction expert and former UN official who was based in Gaza between 2006 and 2009. Tony was Director of Gastroenterology & Hepatology at the Prince Charles Hospital in Brisbane, Australia and is currently a professor at multiple universities in Queensland.

Hope and Play’s trustees work voluntarily at the charity and cover its administrative costs to allow public donations to go fully to project work.

How we work

Our approach

Children are at the centre of our project design. That means we are guided by locals on the ground on the needs of children and their families.

We work closely with partner organisations operating in these areas to assess these needs, propose and design initiatives to support them, and mechanisms to report on them. Our longstanding, trusted and vetted local grassroots and community organisations then implement the projects.

Trusted partners on the ground

Our trusted partner of more than 15 years, the Canaan Institute of New Pedagogy, leads on the implementation of most of our activities in Gaza. The Canaan Institute is a lynchpin in Gaza’s civil society network; most youth workers in Gaza have received training there.

Artists from the Shababeek for Contemporary Art centre are currently leading our arts workshops for children in Gaza.

We also work with other trusted partners who are established in the communities in the West Bank, and in other communities of displaced Palestinians, for example in the refugee camps in Lebanon.

Volunteer management and administration

Hope and Play’s trustees retain oversight of all activities and maintain compliance with UK Charity Commission regulations. A team of UK and EU-based volunteers support the trustees on project management, monitoring and evaluation, reporting to donors, communications and fundraising.

Trustees cover all administrative costs of Hope and Play and work on a voluntary basis. We do not retain any funds for overheads or management.

All donations (minus transaction costs) go directly into our activities and projects.

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