Saturdays where children from Gaza can be students again

Thirty-one children come to the sessions right now. Every Saturday, Zeinah Almahsiri and two classmates teach literacy and numeracy, play games and do arts and crafts with children from Gaza who are in Jordan for cancer treatment. The point, she says, is to "create a space where the children can forget, even for a little while, that they're in hospitals or temporary housing."

BraveROOTS began at her school, Ibn Rushd National Academy, where she first met students from Gaza and learned that many had come to Jordan for cancer treatment. As she got to know them and their families, she says, she realised that while they were receiving the medical care they needed, many of the children had lost "the chance to simply be students."

“It's watching them feel like children again instead of patients.”

Zeinah Almahsiri

So she co-founded BraveROOTS with two classmates, a youth-led initiative providing weekly educational and emotional support sessions. Their community helped raise initial funding and donate materials. That let the project launch. This summer they are preparing to expand the sessions to reach around 90 children. The project has been selected as a 2026 Global Youth Action Fund (GYAF) winner, which she credits to her teammates and the wider community.

Catching up in school is part of it. "It's seeing children who were once quiet start asking questions, laughing, and looking forward to the next session," she says. "Those moments remind me why we started and why we keep showing up," she says.

The project did not need a huge organisation or a perfect plan to begin, she says. "Sometimes it begins with noticing that someone needs help and deciding that you're not going to walk away. That's the project I'm proud to be building."