Who We Are
Tamer Institute for Community Education is a Palestinian non-profit organization established in occupied Jerusalem in 1989, during the First Palestinian Intifada. It was founded in response to the closures, curfews, and disruption of education imposed by the Israeli occupation, marked by conditions that directly threatened children’s and youth’s right to learn, as well as the fabric of their everyday lives. Within this context, Tamer emerged as a resistant educational experiment that seeks to empower children and young adults with the tools, spaces, and confidence they need to continue learning and creating under harsh conditions, while opening new pathways for understanding, imagination, and creativity.
The Institute’s name is inspired by the date fruit, a symbol of spiritual nourishment in Arab culture. The word “Tamer” also refers to the person who transfers pollen between palm trees so that they may bear fruit, which captures the Institute’s role in transmitting knowledge and experience among individuals to build their capacities and strengthen their skills at the community level.
Tamer has adopted the red anemone, known in Palestinian colloquial Arabic as the Hannoun flower, as its emblem. This Palestinian flower grows through the cracks of dry land, depicting the capacity of Palestinian life to take root, grow, and flourish even in the harshest and most unjust circumstances.
Our Vision
Toward a free and safe Palestinian learning society.
Our Mission
To foster and sustain a culture of learning among children, youth, and the practitioners involved.
Tamer believes in learning not only through reading books but also in its broader meaning: reading the self, life, and the surrounding world. It trusts in children’s ability to create meaning and cherishes their right to be active partners in shaping it. In this light, the Institute seeks to release and nurture the expressive energies of children and youth by providing diverse platforms for expression through writing, drawing, movement, and music. It encourages them to ask questions, explore, and seek knowledge in critical, creative, and unconventional ways. The Institute works primarily with children, young adults, and youth between the ages of 3 and 23, as well as with the communities connected to them, including parents, teachers, facilitators, librarians, writers, and artists. It strives to create learning environments that enable anyone involved with children and youth to acquire contemporary, flexible, coherent, and non-conventional educational tools.
Tamer’s approach is rooted in the philosophy that storytelling and the preservation of collective memory are essential pillars of learning and shaping Palestinian identity. By bringing together reading, creative writing, arts, and community participation, children and youth are able to connect with their culture, document their lives, and take part in producing their own narratives. The Children’s Literature Resource Center is central to this approach, as it nurtures the growth and development of children’s writers, illustrators, teachers, and librarians, while also strengthening the Institute’s engagement with the wider Palestinian community.
The Institute upholds the values of identity, equality, human rights, acceptance, and critical thinking. Through its Community Education Program and Literary and Intellectual Production Program, Tamer provides literary materials, resources, and activities that stems from the Palestinian context and respond to the needs of children and the communities surrounding them.
Through the Community Education Program, Tamer works with a wide network of school and community libraries, as well as local organizations that have become leading advocates for children’s literature and influential actors in decisions related to children’s culture. The Institute also embraces the concept of “third spaces”: safe, creative, and welcoming spaces where everyone can express themselves freely, without fear of judgment or exclusion.
Tamer’s Literary and Intellectual Production Program is dedicated to evolving a contemporary Arabic children’s literature that resonates with children’s concerns and strengthens their ability to imagine and create a free and safe world. This is realized through diverse forms of knowledge-based and creative production, extending from books to animated stories, songs, and interactive games.