The Children Of Hebron

In recent years I have found that I have been increasingly more concerned personally and professionally about the welfare of children.

In my trips to Durban and Palestine, this was particularly pertinent, hence the skydive in July this year.

I was inspired in Palestine to write some poetry as I found that it condensed my thoughts really well about what I was seeing.  As I share my blog posts you will see some of these pieces as they explain what I saw better than what I could write now.  I felt raw at the time and the poetry brings back that feeling for me.

In Hebron, West Bank,  I walked through the market area a long covered street through the middle of the town.  I say it was covered because when I looked up there was a net and on that net was a load of rubbish.

What was happening here was that in the apartments at the top of the buildings, Palestinian families had been evicted from their homes and were replaced by Israeli settlers.  The settlers seem to all be orthodox Zionist Jews who believe that this land is theirs.  I don't have a problem with their religion or beliefs, but I have a problem with the way that they treat the Palestinians.

Back to that netting.... The reason for the netting being there is so that the rubbish being thrown out of the windows of the now settler owned apartments, can be caught and not allowed to fall on the people below in the market.

If I throw rubbish at someone here in the UK, I am pretty sure that they wouldn't like it and might even get the Police involved.  In Hebron, this behaviour (and other strategies for trying to push out the Palestinians) is protected by the Israeli Defense Force.  It would seem that Palestinians have no rights.
For me, I am saddened that there are kids living in this mess.  All around them is conflict, hate, distrust.  What kind of life is that for a child?  Lots of the kids I came across where selling trinkets on the market to make money for their families.

Please share this blog if you like the poetry, not for my benefit but because I hope that it will help others to understand more about the issues facing Palestinians and this of course means their children too.

Your sponsorship will change children's lives for the better.

Why I am jumping for justice.

Hi I am John Hicks.

I am nearly 44 and I live with my wife Diane and my two daughters Beth and Jess in Cambridgeshire, UK.  On July 10th,  I am going to take part in a tandem skydive raising awareness about human rights and raising money for the London based human rights charity, Amos Trust.  Today I received the all clear from my doctor and I have a certificate to say that I am medically ready to jump out of that plane!

Ooh er!  It looks like I am committed now!

One of the things that we love to do as a family is to travel and we have been to many different countries and explored different cultures.
In 2009, we visited Durban in South Africa, almost at the tip of Africa.




We decided to go there because we had heard a lot about a project that sought to help children and young people that lived on the streets of a city famous for violent crimes and abuse.
The project, Umthombo Street Child, gave street children a place to go for support and hope to one day be reunited with family or develop a better life for themselves.
Umthombo used sport (surfing and football), art and dedicated workers to reach out to those children, some of whom could be as young as four.
On one occasion, the then director of the project, Tom Hewitt MBE, said to me that every street child that I would have met will have had experienced some form of sexual abuse in order to be accepted into the numerous gangs in the city.  For many of those kids, being in a gang meant being 'safe' on the streets.
Considering what these kids had to deal with, they were always friendly to us and Umthombo gave them hope for the future, and opportunities to set away from life on the streets.

In June 2014, I was fortunate to visit another project based in Bethlehem in the West Bank, Middle East.



I was playing in a band for an arts festival and so by night I did the rock n roll thing and by day I visited places where Palestinians lived.
On one occasion I visited a family just outside Bethlehem and they gave me a seat under an olive tree and served me tea.  I played with their kids for a while too, I tried to teach them to juggle.  They thought it was funny.

The only problem with this scene, was that in the background lay the demolished house of that family.  The Israeli Defence Force, gave them an hour to abandon the house before a bulldozer smashed it down.  This was the start of Israel taking their land, which the family had owned for generations, and trying to force the family out.
Despite this, they welcomed us and gave us what little they had and told us their story.  Their water supply which was a borehole was even demolished by the bulldozer so as to make life really hard.

You can read about my visit there by visiting my blog which includes photos, stories and some poetry that I wrote about my experience.  Click here

In both South Africa and in The West Bank, despite what is happening at a political level, children's lives are being negatively affected by the selfish actions of adults.  These actions take away justice and hope for these children.

I am committed to doing what I can to change situations like those described and I am doing this by raising money for The Amos Trust, a UK organisation that supports grass roots organisations in countries that rebuild hope and restore justice.

This is why I am going to jump out of a plane at 15000 ft in a tandem skydive. As I do this I will think of those kids that I have met, some of whom have died at the hands of people that do not champion hope and justice choosing to oppress, damage and belittle the lives of children and adults that have such potential.

I will write more blogs about my upcoming experience and about the experiences that have led me to do the skydive. I hope that I can help you to understand some of what I have seen and maybe even get involved yourself.

For now, if you would like to very practically get involved, I would be delighted if you could sponsor my jump by clicking the banner below or at the very least simply share my story to your Twitter, Facebook or Google accounts.

Thanks for listening.

John