"Sharing Hopes and Dreams: a Ground-Breaking Web Initiative to Mark the Twentieth Anniversary of the Convention on the Rights of the Child"

JERUSALEM, November 20 - This Friday 20th November sees the twentieth anniversary of
the historic United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, in which
governments set out their vision of a dignified future for the world's
children. But twenty years on, what difference has the convention made in the
lives of hundreds of thousands of Palestine refugee children?

To mark the anniversary, the UK-based NGO, the Hoping
Foundation, in partnership with the UN's Relief and Works Agency is unveiling
a project in which Palestine refugee school leavers across the Middle East
will create the region's first ever on line video yearbook. The "Hopes and
Dreams" project encapsulates their aspirations and brings together on line a
community divided and scattered by decades of statelessness and exile.

Hundreds of flip cams have been distributed to tens of
thousands of students in UNRWA schools in Gaza, the West Bank, Jordan,
Lebanon and Syria. On Thursday they will each be lining up and recording a 30
second message, sharing with their peers their hopes and dreams. Using the
latest technology from the innovative video communications company
Winkball.com, these messages will be posted in an on line yearbook and will
form the basis of a living network that will be enriched in years to come
with similar messages from the next generation of school leavers.

It's hoped more than 50,000+ video messages will be recorded.

A Hoping team led by fashion designer and Hoping co-founder,
Bella Freud will be in Gaza to help organize the filming and record the event
itself. The Yearbook filming will be taking place simultaneously in over 400
schools in Gaza, the West Bank, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria throughout the day
on Thursday, the 19th of November, marking the anniversary of the Convention
on the Rights of the Child.

If TV editors want further pictures, world renowned novelist
and childrens' storyteller Philip Pullman, musician and writer Nick Cave, and
other prominent individuals have recorded video messages in support of the
HOPING-UNRWA initiative, and these will be available online on November 19th
at www.hopingfoundation.org.

For further details of filming opportunities and interview requests with the school leavers, teachers and Bella Freud, please contact Chris Gunness on c.gunness at unrwa.org, Sami Mshasha on s.mshasha at unrwa.org or Alice Gillham on a.gillham at unrwa.org. Claire Palmer or Catherine Bayfield, Shout Communications, +44(0)207-240-7373, enquiries at shoutcommunications.co.uk