Internship In Palestine was created as an expansion of The Excellence Center in Hebron, Palestine, which was originally founded in 2011. 

Our Beginning

In 2011, a group of dedicated Palestinian community servants in Hebron launched the Excellence Center. It was started primarily as a facility for connecting international volunteer English teachers with Palestinian students wanting to learn English. In Hebron, Palestinian students in schools are taught English by Palestinian teachers. Unfortunately, students have little to no exposure to native or foreign English speakers.

As Hebron is not a major tourist destination, many Palestinian students have rarely met English speakers from other countries. This is something that the Excellence Center endeavored to change. 

English Taught in Palestinian Schools

While Palestinian students learn English in school, the school curriculum in the West Bank is often teacher- and grammar-focused. This means there is little or no time for practicing speaking English. In addition, class sizes can have 40-50 students per class, which makes learning another language that much more difficult.

This approach often leads Palestinian students to leave school and feel like they can’t speak or use English, though they spent many years studying it. This is a gap that we have strived to bridge since our founding. We continue this important and innovative work today.

Different Approach To Teaching English

The Excellence Center sought a different approach to teaching English. We wanted to use more practical and communicative methods, bringing native and fluent English speakers together in Palestine.

Connecting internationals with Palestinian students inside the English classroom gives Palestinian students much-needed practice and exposure to English. Not only that, it can also increase their confidence. Additionally, it can present the perfect setting for cultural exchange and building multicultural relationships. 

Our Success Led to Expansion

The Excellence Center became more established and reputable within the local community in Hebron. We then started to have more Palestinian students join us for our English courses. We also began to develop our intensive Arabic courses. These were aimed at international students wanting to come to study Arabic in Palestine, either the local dialect or Fus’ha. True to our name, we continued to provide excellent English and Arabic education for our international and Palestinian students to help them achieve excellence in their own lives.

Furthermore, we have continued to offer unique experiences and meaningful impact on our local Palestinian community in Hebron. Therefore, we began to have more international volunteers and our international reputation also grew. Our success with our English teaching programs led to our continued growth. This allowed us to create Internship In Palestine to expand into other important fields. 

Community Development

The Excellence Center focuses primarily on teaching English to local Palestinian students and Arabic to international students. However, Internship in Palestine primarily focuses on community development. This includes working with Palestinian refugees, Palestinian children, and other members of the local Palestinian community. Internship In Palestine runs numerous programs and training services aimed at developing our local community, by creating better career and economic opportunities and a better future.

Additional Goals of Internship in Palestine

Internship In Palestine also aims to educate and inform international participants about Palestine in several subjects. This includes human rights, women’s rights, Palestinian culture, laws and legal practices, and medicine and healthcare. Today, Internship In Palestine offers volunteer programs and internships in a variety of fields for those wishing to come to Palestine and engage with the local community. 

This is vital work as there are many unfair misconceptions about Palestine and Palestinians in the international community. Therefore, this is an area where we can make a real difference. In addition, it is very difficult for Palestinians to travel abroad due to the restrictions imposed on them by the Occupation, which also limits the tourism industry within Palestine. Thus, Internship in Palestine provides an environment where Palestinians can engage with people from all over the world.

Expanding To New Facilities

Due to our success and expansion, in 2017 we left our original building on Ein Sara Street and moved to new facilities just a few minutes away by foot. Our new facilities, where we are located today, are larger and have more than double the classrooms we had previously.

This allows us to teach more English and Arabic classes and gives us a bigger space to host more international participants. Additionally, we now have more space to offer more workshops, seminars, events, and training sessions for internationals and our local community.

The Covid-19 Pandemic

The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020 certainly offered setbacks and challenges for most people around the world, including us. But, thankfully, we have been busier than ever since 2022. Since 2022, we have hosted larger numbers of international volunteers, interns, and students and provided more English classes than ever before. 

Looking to the Future

Our story is not yet finished as we continue to expand and grow both internationally and within our local community. Our commitment to our values, our local Palestinian community, and our international participants has led to our enormous success and expansion since our very humble beginning.

We will continue to grow and develop our local community as well as our international participants from now until the future. If you wish to intern in Palestine with us, we would be more than happy to welcome you!