Since its inception, Tamer has viewed education as a life practice and a daily endeavor, rather than a subject to be lectured in classrooms. Learning is not an end in itself, but a renewed path of inquiry, discovery, and expression. For this reason, the Institute integrates education with art, and knowledge with experience, to create a unique Palestinian model based on experimentation, imagination, and community integration. Today, Tamer works with hundreds of children and youth in the West Bank and Gaza Strip within its diverse educational programs, which aim to develop critical thinking skills, reading, arithmetic, creative writing, and the arts, alongside building the capacities of teachers, librarians, and parents.
The Community Learning Program is centered on building safe and inclusive learning environments for children and youth, and strengthening the roles of those who accompany them daily: parents, caregivers, facilitators, librarians, teachers, and artists. Through this, we seek to make access to knowledge, books, language, and art a tangible right rather than a temporary privilege, and to transform the library, school, and community space into a "place fit for life," even when reality becomes heavier than an individual's ability to endure alone.
The Community Learning Program at Tamer Institute weaves a community network through various school libraries and community libraries—which are usually affiliated with municipalities, village councils, sports clubs, and community centers distributed across various governorates. The Institute provides these centers with books for children and youth, in addition to stationery and material interventions based on the library's needs to improve these environments. This network embraces all people regardless of their race, age, gender, religion, or political positions, forming a safe "Third Space" based on creativity and child-friendliness. It enables them to express their feelings and thoughts without fear of judgment or exclusion. Tamer works to restore the role of the community and school library to be a reservoir of knowledge and a free space for children and youth to express themselves, connect, and communicate when the home or school is unable to fulfill this role.
The fabric of this community network is not limited to physical spaces only; it is also woven through the Institute’s staff. The team includes 47 field coordinators distributed across the West Bank, Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip; 25 case managers and counselors; and approximately 500 volunteers, facilitators, teachers, and librarians whom the Institute targets with training and capacity-building programs. These programs focus on activating the library through book discussions, creative writing, and expressive arts activities, with the aim of strengthening the relationship between the library and the local community and encouraging the engagement of children and youth. The Institute also conducts meetings and "neighborhood-style" learning sessions (Mujawarat) with various thinkers, trainers, and artists, and works to bridge youth teams and libraries so they may play a leading role in activating these spaces.
The Community Learning Program consists of four interconnected tracks/sections:
- The Community Network: Libraries, centers as learning spaces and local partnerships,
- Reading campaigns: a collective pulse reflecting the spirit of Tamer.
- Education: Supporting qualitative learning in schools and school libraries, building the capacities of teachers and librarians, and producing educational and learning tools sensitive to childhood and the Palestinian context.
- Youth: Empowering young people as producers of knowledge and culture through initiatives, literary/artistic tracks, youth teams, and the intersections between the West Bank, Gaza, and the Diaspora.
- Protection: Protection built from within. This includes psychosocial support, awareness of protection risks, positive parenting, and training in identification, investigation, referral, and psychological first aid, supported by an active case management system and referral networks.
Tamer does not aim through its programs merely to "provide activities," but rather strives to build a habit: the habit of reading, the habit of critical thinking, the habit of questioning, and the habit of the child having a permanent place, a voice, and an impact.