SAIL Initiatives

Project maintained by SAIL-Initiatives Hosted on GitHub Pages — Theme by mattgraham

Call to Action: Grassroots Initiatives Bridging Research and Real-World Impact in Gaza

Who we are

We are a 100% volunteer-led collective working at the intersection of education, research, and community support.

Please consider following our event annoucements on Instagram

Our milestones to date:

Hosted a virtual cocreation workshop with participants from Australia, Canada, Finland, Indonesia, Japan, Palestine, Norway, and beyond.
English Empowerment Program (EEP): Providing free weekly online English empowering* lessons to Gazan teens since August 2025 over 28+ consecutive weeks
Conducted over 90+ research meetings with steering committee members and research volunteers from Finland, Indonesia, Japan, and the United Kingdom
Contributed over 1000+ volunteer hours, leading to our first research article presented at Muslims in ML Workshop at NeurIPS 2025
Learn more in our visual briefs

*Empowering...

We are adopting a train-a-trainer model with an emphasis on conversational English
Our free sessions are carefully designed by experienced educators:
- 𝗖𝗮𝗿𝗲𝗳𝘂𝗹 𝗰𝘂𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻: To maintain a psychologically safe learning environment, we intentionally avoided potentially sensitive topics such as travel and celebrations that might evoke difficult emotions
- 𝗦𝗼𝗼𝘁𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗴: We center our lessons on calming themes as music and art, fostering connection to students’ daily realities while honouring their personal resilience, creativity, and growing confidence alongside their English development
Inclusive approach, including:
- Offline homework activities
- Integration of trauma-coping strategies using color, art, crafts, sketching, and paired picture-book readings

About Us

We have multiple WhatsApp-based communities connecting our volunteers to educators and learners from North Gaza and the West Bank. Given constrained resources and limited volunteer capacity, we intentionally design initiatives that are manageable, sustainable, and discreet.

Our focus is on delivering practical, timely support to marginalized children by:

Sharing STEAM educational resources that local educators can readily use
Offering free Zoom-based English learning sessions through our English Empowerment Program

In parallel, we connect global advocates and researchers through unfunded, community-driven research initiatives that prioritize ethical collaboration and real-world impact.

2026 & Beyond

English Empowerment Program

We strive to keep the program running; please contact email if you could volunteer 1 hour/ week

Virtual Workshops

Workshops to witness and experience global solidarity

2026: Please email us to propose a topic, time and date of our next workshop at ccw4gaza@gmail.com
2026: Feb 14 Kullaj-Making Virtual Co-Cooking Workshop
2025: June 21, 22, 28, 29 virtual cocreation workshop

Translation + image captioning + cultural preservation projects

Community-centered projects focused on accessibility, storytelling, and cultural continuity
More details to come

Addressing inequity through AI-assisted interventions
Inviting researchers and practitioners to co-develop mobile applications for marginalized communities around the world, e.g. Sudan, Congo