S4E3 - Lessons from the AFSC School Program for Palestinian Refugees

This is an episode of Behind the Pages - the podcast of the Journal on Education in Emergencies. Join us for these exciting and timely conversations with JEiE authors about their work on education in regions affected by crisis and conflict. Between 1947 and 1949, the Arab-Israeli conflict displaced approximately 800,000 Palestinians into Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, and into what today are the West Bank and Gaza. The American Friends Service Committee, a Quaker organization based in Philadelphia, was among the first to establish schools for these refugees, in many ways shaping the trajectory of the United Nations agency that is now responsible for providing education to Palestinian refugees. In her article, "'Incredibly Difficult, Tragically Needed, and Absorbingly Interesting': Lessons from the AFSC School Program for Palestinian Refugees in Gaza, 1949 to 1950," Jo Kelcey draws on archival records from the AFSC and the UN and argues for a critical historical assessment of how refugee education programs align with humanitarian principles. This article is available, in its entirety, for free here: https://inee.org/collections/journal-education-emergencies-volume-5-number-1