WRITING PROMPTS TO SUPPORT CHILDREN IN GAZA
UNICEF reports that in Gaza, “hundreds of thousands of children and families are caught in a catastrophic situation” and that, as of November 5th 2023, over 4000 children have been killed and more than 7000 have been injured “due to unrelenting attacks”, while a thousand others are missing. Outlining the charity’s Appeal for Children in Gaza, UNICEF spokesman James Elder explains: “Gaza has become a graveyard for thousands of children. It’s a living hell for everyone else.” Elder has also called for “children held hostage in Gaza [to] be immediately reunited with their families and loved ones”. Recent updates state that “hundreds of thousands of children … remain trapped in a war zone with little or no access to food, water, electricity, medicine or medical care”.
For the duration of NaNoWriMo 2023, we will be posting a writing prompt every day and in doing so, we encourage our community to donate to charities providing medical aid to children in desperate need in this unprecedented crisis. These prompts have been created by writers from Wales or with a connection to Wales and its magazines and presses. The prompts are on all kinds of subjects, but many are related to anti-violence and the work of empathy, and they are offered with the simple hope that they might encourage people to donate in support of medical aid in Gaza. We include a list of suggested charities to donate to below, highlighting the Appeal for Children in Gaza.
UNICEF “continues to call for an immediate ceasefire as 1.1 million people — nearly half of them children — in northern Gaza have been warned to move out of the way of a widescale military assault, but with nowhere safe for them to go”. Elder concludes: “The humanitarian situation has reached lethal lows, and yet all reports point to further attacks. Compassion – and international law – must prevail.”
Please see the list of suggested charities at the end of the post. A new prompt will be posted until at least the end of November 2023.
DAY 6: JUDE BRIGLEY
Re-winding the Past
In ‘Retreat’ by Charles Harper Webb, the poet imagines if time could run backwards. He takes an emotional moment from his life and instead of describing what happened in temporal order, he begins at the end and works back to a beginning.
You could choose a moment of shock or anger and work back to when those things or feelings or thoughts did not exist. It could be a way of working out when an event or feeling actually began for you and by running it backwards it could help you distance yourself from something memorable or bitter or disturbing.
One way of starting could be to list key moments – what you did or felt. (Of course it may not be you at all in the usual sense).
Lastly, look at the poem and see if the events/thoughts can be linked even if told backwards.
Please consider donating to a charity providing medical aid in Gaza. We recommend UNICEF’s Appeal for Children in Gaza, but other charities include:
Palestine Children’s Relief Fund
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