Ursula Foundation holds a conference to discuss “The Book of the Camp”

The Ursula Foreign Foundation held a conference in the city of Costa Rica to present and discuss “The Book of the Camp,” which deals with the stories and conversations narrated about the Palestinian refugees in the Ain al-Hilweh camp since asylum until the year 1985, in the presence of a number of students and activists supporting the Palestinian people after obtaining a number of book copies. This effort on the book since the year 2021 came as a result of an initiative by the “Cultural and Social Nashet Association” in cooperation with the “Ursla Foundation”, and with the support of the “Saasa Family” in honor of the spirit of the late fighter Dr. Mahmoud Abdel Rahim Saasa, in an attempt to collect all information about the past since the occupation of Palestine, until asylum in Lebanon. The aim is to formulate the correct Palestinian narrative about Ein al-Hilweh camp, quoting men and women representing three generations who have lived through the history of the camp since the Nakba. Dozens of volunteers participated in the preparation process, and the book was completed under the supervision of the late youth activist Walid Taha. It included a process of documenting memory through dozens of interviews conducted with women and men of different ages, taking into account the period from 1948 to the late 1960s, from the year 1969. To 1980, and from 1980 to 1985. The period of writing the book, including interviews, proofreading, transcribing, preparing and issuing, lasted about 3 years

The compilation process was undertaken by the late Walid Taha, and the process of physical editing and compilation was undertaken by the Lebanese critic and writer Obaido Pasha and the writer Dr. Zafer Al-Khatib. It was also translated into English with the efforts of Dr. Waad Hassan, and Professor Wajeha Saasa is currently translating it into Spanish

The book presents the history that carries the issue, the struggle, and the path of interaction and conflict, which will not become a thing of the past, as Dr. Al-Khatib narrated, in the introduction to the book, and which usually goes to the bottom of limited human memory, but in this book he walks as a witness, not a martyr, because it is an issue of inevitable return. There is no other option.

It is worth noting that the book was published in its Arabic and English versions by Nelson Publishing House in July 2023 and was supposed to be released in the same month, but the unfortunate events that took place in the Ain al-Hilweh camp prevented that, and it was postponed to September of the same year. Nashat Association intends to begin preparations to launch the book in July 2024