בבל בלסבוס - מקום של תקווה בין פליטות להגירה: בית ספר השלום לילדי פליטים

The ongoing refugee crisis in Lesbos has led Jewish and Arabic Israeli youth movement educators to collaborate in order to create a school for the refugee children in the island. All teachers are refugees themselves,and all classes are held in the native languages of the different communities.An interdisciplinary research team was commissioned to assess the project and its sustainability and to extract a replicable model for refugee education. The team applied a phenomenological arts-based methodology; a quantitative methodology to study the notion of hope; and field-driven theory qualitative methods using a large number of individual interviews as well as the analysis of inside documentation. The main findings are: The school staff has managed to maintain stability despite the constant turn over of the students, the teachers and the Israeli educators. It draws its resiliency from an informal values-driven praxis, insisting that the school be open to all and abolishing any form of violence.Students, teachers,and parents alike consider learning English as the ultimate goal of the school. War refugees and work immigrants differ in their linguistic choices.In order to overcome the "tower of Babel"challenge, the school has shaped its own unique language, which draws upon three sub-languages used in everyday life by both students and teachers.