Abstract
Education in Gaza has been profoundly disrupted by ongoing war, displacement, and the widespread destruction of educational infrastructure. In this context, small-scale educational initiatives can create modest but meaningful spaces for learning, connection, and psychosocial support. We present Voices Beyond Borders (VBB), an English-mediated virtual exchange project linking young women in Gaza with Chinese EFL teachers studying for an MA TESOL degree in the UK, as a reflective qualitative case study. We explore how VBB created opportunities for intercultural dialogue, voice, relationship-building, and educational solidarity amid severe educational disruption. We draw on participant and team reflections, project artefacts, Padlet posts, and final video outputs. Findings suggest that VBB enabled participants to move beyond distant representations of Gaza towards more direct human connection; supported Gazan participants in using English as a resource for voice, agency, and storytelling; fostered reciprocal forms of educational solidarity; and created learning through difficulty, difference, and ethical listening. We suggest that VBB’s value lay less in measurable language outcomes than in the relational, ethical, and psychosocial possibilities it opened. While VBB could not address the structural destruction of education in Gaza, it illustrates how internationally supported, locally facilitated, and ethically grounded virtual exchange can contribute to intercultural educational solidarity in and with Gaza.
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APA 7th edition
In-text citation: (Subhi El et al., 2026)
Reference: Subhi El, T., Samara, S., Wang, J., Dawson, S. J., & Fay, R. (2026). The “voices beyond borders” English-mediated intercultural educational solidarity project with Gaza: A reflective case study.
European Journal of Education & Language Review, 2(2), Article 1.
https://doi.org/10.20897/ejelr/18996
AMA 10th edition
In-text citation: (1), (2), (3), etc.
Reference: Subhi El T, Samara S, Wang J, Dawson SJ, Fay R. The “voices beyond borders” English-mediated intercultural educational solidarity project with Gaza: A reflective case study.
European Journal of Education & Language Review. 2026;2(2), 1.
https://doi.org/10.20897/ejelr/18996
Chicago
In-text citation: (Subhi El et al., 2026)
Reference: Subhi El, Taghreed, Shaimaa Samara, Jing Wang, Susan J. Dawson, and Richard Fay. "The “voices beyond borders” English-mediated intercultural educational solidarity project with Gaza: A reflective case study".
European Journal of Education & Language Review 2026 2 no. 2 (2026): 1.
https://doi.org/10.20897/ejelr/18996
Harvard
In-text citation: (Subhi El et al., 2026)
Reference: Subhi El, T., Samara, S., Wang, J., Dawson, S. J., and Fay, R. (2026). The “voices beyond borders” English-mediated intercultural educational solidarity project with Gaza: A reflective case study.
European Journal of Education & Language Review, 2(2), 1.
https://doi.org/10.20897/ejelr/18996
MLA
In-text citation: (Subhi El et al., 2026)
Reference: Subhi El, Taghreed et al. "The “voices beyond borders” English-mediated intercultural educational solidarity project with Gaza: A reflective case study".
European Journal of Education & Language Review, vol. 2, no. 2, 2026, 1.
https://doi.org/10.20897/ejelr/18996
Vancouver
In-text citation: (1), (2), (3), etc.
Reference: Subhi El T, Samara S, Wang J, Dawson SJ, Fay R. The “voices beyond borders” English-mediated intercultural educational solidarity project with Gaza: A reflective case study. European Journal of Education & Language Review. 2026;2(2):1.
https://doi.org/10.20897/ejelr/18996