North writer Peter Mortimer helps refugee children

Aug 12 2009 by Tony Henderson, The Journal

FOR two months North East writer Peter Mortimer worked with pupils in a Palestinian refugee camp to perform a play based on a fable he had penned.

Now the venture is to have a fairytale ending with 10 girls and their teachers from the school in Shatila camp in Beirut due to arrive in the North East next month to stage the play at a series of venues.

It will be the first time that the girls, aged 12 and 13, will have seen the world outside the camp.

The children were born and grew up in Shatila camp, scene of a massacre in 1982, where up to 3,000 people were killed.

The camp, with its ramshackle buildings, is home to around 17,000 people in an area no bigger than a cricket field.

More than £22,000 has been raised in the North East to bring the youngsters to the region for an eight-day stay.

A seven-mile sponsored walk along the North Tyneside coast, organised by Cullercoats-based Peter, raised £7,000, while Newcastle College Fine Art Department donated £1,500 from a charity auction, and £500 came from a Words & Music night run by writer Jeff Price at The Cumberland Arms in Byker, Newcastle.

North Tyneside Council gave £6,000, Arts Council England North-East, £4,600, the Co-operative membership £1,900, and £500 came from the Arab-British Centre.