Paul Calvert spoke with Bogart Shunthurst from Lifegate

Bogart: Christians are less than 2% of the Palestinian population, so as we understand the Bible, we are supposed to love everybody and it doesn't matter what religion he has, or the colour of his skin. Jesus told us to love and accept people like they are, so of course in Lifegate the picture of the society is 98% Moslem population is almost the same in Lifegate. There is one little difference and that is that our staff are mainly Christians. Why? The Christian minority does not have much of a hope for the future, so many of them try to follow relatives who have already settled abroad. The Christian population in the birthplace of Jesus is declining every year and the Moslem population gets bigger; that's why in Lifegate we would like to give Christian people a working place that they are able to stay; that they have an income; they can raise their children and have a decent life here. We are a Christian organisation; that means we share our faith with everybody who comes in. We would like people to see the love we have towards each other and ask questions and then we have good answers for them and that's why we are having almost 95% Christian staff in the institution.

Paul: What are you doing with the children and youth at Lifegate?

Bogart: We teach 10 professions for young people between the age of 15 and 25. The aim is after two or three years of learning here in Lifegate that they are able to work outside in society.

We saw that for many years that we were taking people at the age of 15 and that was quite late. If we would reach the people 10 years before, we could maybe set them up in directions that they wouldn't need us in the age of 15 any more. Another thing that we saw was that the woman that gives birth, or has a child with an impairment, has a very hard situation; the bigger family almost blames the woman that the child is impaired; the genetic problems could come from the line of the husband, but they never confess that it could be like that, it's always the woman. They sometimes have more than one child with a problem, so these women are often carrying a very heavy burden.

In Lifegate, we decided 10 years ago to give one day a week where these mothers with impaired children can come to the institution and have a morning for them. They can talk to each other, they can rest, and they can do something they like; to eat a good breakfast together, to listen to music, to have relaxation things like that. Out of this mothers meeting, very soon the mothers wanted to know more about the background of the problems of the children, so we taught many mothers in programmes and courses what is the problem with the child and how you can help the child in the home. Today I can say we trained along the years many mothers to become our partners to develop the children in the home environment and so today in Lifegate we say the parents and our staff are the developing team or the development for the child and we don't let the parents drop the child in the institution and go away out of this. Then the kindergarten was created because these mothers didn't give us a rest until we started a daily programme for their children, so today we have 25 children in a developing kindergarten. In the future we are able to have 50 and now the missing link in the kindergarten and the vocational training is the school.

Paul: What do the kids learn here in the school?

Bogart: The school at the minute is two classes because many children grow out of the kindergarten between six and 10 years old. There isn't a school for the development of children with impairment yet in the Palestinian territory. Lifegate has no choice than building a school and creating a school. In the new location there is one floor meant for 100 children with special needs so that the children who grow out of our kindergarten, but also children who come in at certain ages, they can have a school where they can develop. We would also like to have non-impaired children in our school to create an example in our society. It's possible that children learn together because we've tried over the years and with success to integrate our physically impaired children in main stream schools and we found in some schools open doors for our children and it was a very nice experience, but still many schools do not want to take children with impairment because the facilities are not ready for it; they don't have the bathrooms etc. We can solve many of those problems; it's the parents of non-impaired children who put an obstacle on our children and say to the school if these children enter the school they will take their children to another school. We would like to create an example in our school that impaired and non-impaired children can learn very well together and this model can be transferred hopefully to many Palestinian schools after that.

Paul: What are you teaching the youth in the workshop?

Bogart: In the workshop we teach hand craft vocations, which are needed in the country. There is around 40% unemployment in the Palestinian territories. The Bethlehem area is quite well off, because many tourists come here and many people are far more involved in tourism or services for tourists, so they have work, but if you go 5km from here to the country side, you will find villages where maybe 50%-60% of the men who are the providers of the family will not find any long term job. They are daily workers; they go somewhere in the morning and they hope they are picked up by someone to have a daily activity and are paid in the evening, but very often they come home and didn't find anything. This is a very desperate situation in the society so we do not want to add our impaired people to a labour market where they later don't find work. In the very first meeting when we are going to visit the person in the home, we look at what is in the village; what is in the next town; are there workshops; are there little companies; how the transportation problem can be solved. We put all this into consideration before we decide with the young person and the family and the parents what we are going to teach, because we want to be almost 90% sure before we start, that later they can work in this profession, hopefully in their village, but often also in the nearby town.

We teach shoe and leather repair; we have a carpentry shop; we work with olive wood, which is very famous here for the olive wood products. We also produce olive oils and we have a sewing shop; knitting shop and Palestinian embroidery and ceramics work. In the future we are able to add to it computer training. We would like to teach young men hair cutting and also we will have an industrial laundry, which can wash the bed sheets for the hotels in the Bethlehem area.

The products we produce in Lifegate are mainly gifts; many of them are connected with Christmas; Bethlehem Christmas; olive wood nativity sets, which is a very famous thing. We do have also many products that are for daily use like salad servers; spoon things for the household; things for your desk in the office; embroidery work as well. We are able to do all kinds, for example book covers for Bibles, or for song books. We have special bags; we have a very nice touch book for little children, which is very unique with motifs from the country and nice pottery ceramic items so these are the things we produce. We are not very competitive on the market because we want to pay our young people fair salaries. We sell most of the product in Europe, in Germany and a little bit in France.

Paul: You are about to move into a new facility, what's going to be happening there?

Bogart: For many years we have been working in rented facilities and the truth is I never wanted to build a house because I love my work and I think we did quite a good job with the help of our Lord every day in rented facilities. Then we were several times approached by organisations in Germany saying the rent you pay and the running cost are so high, did you ever consider building something for yourself? There was an amount of money provided and when this happened I said, "Lord ok, if you want us to build, then we will start; we are not lazy people". We looked for a piece of land. It took two years to find a suitable piece of land and the budget to pay for it and then the funds, lets say, one by one came in and still they are building with little amounts of money coming in and the building is far from being finished unfortunately; but the good news is parts of the building are already finished. The kindergarten is already moved in and working. The administration will follow; then the therapy and then the workshops. In the new facility we have much more room than we have now in the rented place and of course we could build the house in a way that it really suits our work.

My first sentence to the architects was, "I would like that you draw us a building where the architecture gives people some hope and would like to come in and see what is inside". We tried our best, which wasn't easy with the local mind to make a house that is attractive, which has some colours that our children and young people like to stay in and like to receive the programme Lifegate can offer.