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CNN Sunday Morning

Counselors Work With Palestinian Children

Aired August 11, 2002 - 09:22   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: As the violence in the Middle East continues, children are, of course, among the most innocent victims. Kids hurt, killed and traumatized on both sides. Now, this story is not about the reasons behind the violence, it is simply about the effects of it, effects felt in the places where children live and play. CNN's Michael Holmes reports from an extraordinary camp for Palestinian children in the West Bank.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MICHAEL HOLMES, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It could be a playground anywhere, but this isn't just anywhere. It is Ramallah on the West Bank. And for these children, life is anything but normal.

SUAD MITWALLI, PSYCHOLOGIST: Normal children, usually, they dream of what I can buy for tomorrow, what kind of sport, what the Internet is doing right now. Our children, they are not dreaming with this. They are dreaming, if I am going to be alive tomorrow or not.

HOLMES: Suad Mitwalli is one of the team of psychologists running a unique summer camp for kids to help their minds and bodies. You see, each of these children has either lost a loved one, seen their homes destroyed or themselves been wounded in this nearly two- year intifadah. Children like Khadil (ph), happy in the playground, less so as she takes part in a painting exercise.

MITWALLI (through translator): Look at your painting. What do you see?

UNIDENTIFIED GIRL (through translator): Destroyed houses and soldiers. They are beating people with their rifles.

HOLMES: Suad asks Khadil (ph) about her brother, a Palestinian policeman killed in fighting five months ago. It is a painful conversation to hear.

UNIDENTIFIED GIRL (through translator): I miss him. He took me everywhere with him.

HOLMES: Heba (ph) too lost her brother. He was 11 years old. And her best friend. He went out to play, and when he began throwing stones at Israeli troops, he was shot dead. Her painting, she says, shows the Jerusalem she hasn't been able to visit in months.

(on camera): There has been much talk lately about malnutrition among Palestinian children brought on by food shortages, but psychologists say the problems faced by these kids are in many ways more chronic, more insidious and potentially far more damaging.

MITWALLI: For the long term, it's going to be like a disaster for us, because a lot of traumas, it's not one trauma. It is a continuous one.

HOLMES (voice-over): The camp is designed to identify specific problems with specific children, and then follow up with each child, providing individual counseling. The symptoms are many.

MITWALLI: Aggression between children, verbally and physically. A lot of children, they speak about their nightmares, how often it is. And some behavior, strange behaviors, such as crying all the time, burst into tears, or burst into laughing.

HOLMES: A play that needed no rehearsal, these children not yet teenagers know the sequence all too well -- from stone-throwing to death.

The smiles you see, counselors say, are a defense mechanism; the scene anything but funny. Afterward, counselors debrief the cast, all of whom have been wounded in the intifadah. They chose their own roles and the plot.

Why a death scene, ask the counselors? Why not a wedding? The answer comes back, "because we are at war and there are martyrs every day." Procession broken up when one child yells out, "there is a jeep outside." The children rush to throw stones. The counselors and psychologists rush to stop them.

Habits die hard here.

MITWALLI: I'm afraid of what this generation is going to be. It's going to be a frustrated generation, depressed one, and as well no future. I can't look at the future to see it right now.

HOLMES: Back in the painting class, Suad asks Khadil (ph) what she would tell her brother if he were here. "Don't go away," comes the reply. "Stay with us."

Michael Holmes, CNN, Ramallah, on the West Bank.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

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