Programme description

In 2006 the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs approved a three-year continuation of the music cooperation between Palestine and Norway that started in 2002. The partners are Concerts Norway and Sabreen, and the programme is called Bidayat. The chief goal of the cooperation is to strengthen music education in primary and lower secondary schools in Palestine, and the main ingredients of the collaboration are competence building, the compilation of curricula for music teaching in these schools, the establishment and trial of resource centres, concerts and dissemination activities, and the development and production of teaching aids.

In addition several music centres are to be set up in the towns – open for children and young people also outside school hours. School concerts constitute an important part of the music collaboration, and a number of Palestinian performers present Arabic music in Palestine as well as for Norwegian schoolchildren each year.

The programme covers all three types of schools in Palestine: Governmental Schools, UNRWA schools and Latin Patriarchate schools.