West Bank mayor says church-funded center will help city youths

Published: 2004-02-20

BEIT SAHOUR, West Bank (CNS) -- A new church-funded community center will help provide much-needed cultural activities for young people, said a West Bank mayor. Beit Sahour Mayor Fuad Kokaly said the building would be the first municipal community center in his largely Christian city of 14,000 people. The city has lacked outlets for its young people since the outbreak of the intifada in 2000, he said. "That means creating life here," Kokaly said at the opening of the center in mid-February. "To create life in the old city means to keep the city active, and we hope it will serve cultural and economic needs, and people will return to the old city," he said. Work on the Dar Dakarat Beit Sahour Community Center began two-and-a-half years ago with an initial $30,000 grant from the Pontifical Mission for Palestine to help restore a 100-year-old building.

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