{"id":2073,"date":"2012-09-05T12:09:32","date_gmt":"2012-09-05T09:09:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jahalin.org\/?p=2073"},"modified":"2012-09-05T12:09:32","modified_gmt":"2012-09-05T09:09:32","slug":"tough-bedouin-life-wins-teen-a-fairy-tale-award-times-of-malta","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jahalin.org\/archive\/?p=2073","title":{"rendered":"Tough Bedouin life wins teen a fairy tale award- Times Of Malta"},"content":{"rendered":"

Girl is inspired by her harsh reality and Barcelona striker Lionel Messi<\/span><\/h2>\n

\u00a0*Story by AFP*<\/span><\/p>\n

August 2012<\/h4>\n

It was the trauma of seeing Israeli troops raze homes in the Bedouin community where she lives that inspired 14-year-old Salha Hamadin to write an award-winning fairy tale.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Earlier this year, Salha, who comes from an impoverished Palestinian Bedouin community near Jerusalem, was crowned winner of the teenage category of the Hans Christian Andersen Fairy Tale Bay competition, which saw 1,200 entries from around the world by youngsters aged 11 to 16.\u00a0The competition, which is dedi\u00adcated to the 19th century Danish author famed for his stories and fables, takes place every year in the Italian town of Sestri Levante, with a focus on child\u00adren\u2019s literature and tales that are not yet published.<\/p>\n

Called Hantush, the story reflects the tough realities of daily life in the occupied West Bank, and starts when an army bulldozer comes to demolish her family home, prompting Salha to call on her pet lamb Hantush to take her away.\u00a0The lamb, who can fly, takes her on an adventure to Spain, where she meets Barcelona football icon Lionel Messi.\u00a0The Barcelona striker ends up returning to the West Bank with her and promises to mend the community\u2019s local football pitch.\u00a0He also offers her a place on his team, but she refuses, saying she is the only one who can look after the family\u2019s flock of sheep because her father is in prison.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe reality I live in inspired me to write this story,\u201d Salha said on the barren rocky hillside known as Wadi Abu Hindi.\u00a0\u201cI used to always think and dream about living a better life in this area.\u201d\u00a0Salha and her family are members of the Jahalin Bedouin community who live in Area C of the West Bank, which has been under full Israeli military and civilian control for years.\u00a0Around 300 Bedouin live in Wadi Abu Hindi, which is made up of tin shacks and where there is no running water or electricity.<\/p>\n

Salha says she heard about Messi through watching tele\u00advision and reading the newspaper when she visited family in the northern city of Nablus.\u00a0The pitch which he promises to fix in her story is a small, sandy play area where local kids kick a ball around.\u00a0Her father Suleiman, 44, is currently serving a 25-year sentence in an Israeli prison, and Salha says she cannot wait to visit him and tell him about the award she has won.\u00a0Figures published by the UN humanitarian agency OCHA show there are around 2,300 Bedouin living in 20 communities in the hills to the east of Jerusalem, more than two thirds of whom are children.\u00a0Although more than 80 per cent of them are refugees, most have demolition orders pending against their homes, schools and animal shelters due to an inability to obtain Israeli building permits, OCHA says.<\/p>\n

Despite her success, Salha has no interest in moving away from her home in the hope that one day, \u201cfantasy can become reality, that this place would become recognised and that the children would have somewhere to play.\u201d But for the time being, the makeshift playground serves a useful purpose, says her uncle, Mukhtar Mohammed Hamadin.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt shows people that human beings actually live in this area.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the beginning, we had no idea how important it was for my niece to win this award, but when we found out she had beaten 1,200 kids from all over the world, we couldn\u2019t help but be proud.\u201d<\/p>\n

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –<\/p>\n

Original article here:<\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.timesofmalta.com\/articles\/view\/20120820\/world\/Tough-Bedouin-life-wins-teen-a-fairy-tale-award.433644<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Girl is inspired by her harsh reality and Barcelona striker Lionel Messi \u00a0*Story by AFP* August 2012 It was the trauma of seeing Israeli troops raze homes in the Bedouin community where she lives that inspired 14-year-old Salha Hamadin to write an award-winning fairy tale. Earlier this year, Salha, who comes from an impoverished Palestinian …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[10],"tags":[47,50,142,206,285],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jahalin.org\/archive\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2073"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jahalin.org\/archive\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jahalin.org\/archive\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jahalin.org\/archive\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jahalin.org\/archive\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2073"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.jahalin.org\/archive\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2073\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jahalin.org\/archive\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2073"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jahalin.org\/archive\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2073"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jahalin.org\/archive\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2073"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}