How Maltha Organized a Remote Cultural Exchange between Palestine & the UAE

Starting a conversation that didn't exist

Maltha had a simple observation: students in Palestine and the UAE were growing up with strong opinions about each other, but almost no direct contact. Her Ámaxa project set out to change that — not through debate or politics, but through the everyday stuff: food, music, family traditions, what a regular school day looks like.

She partnered with two schools — one in Ramallah, one in Dubai — and designed a six-session exchange curriculum. Each session gave students from both sides a structured topic to explore together. By session three, they were asking questions the curriculum hadn't planned for.

What surprised her

Maltha expected the biggest challenge to be logistics — internet access, scheduling, getting teachers on board. The real challenge turned out to be something else: getting students to stop performing and start talking. "At first everyone was very careful," she says. "Then someone made a joke about a food and the whole room relaxed."

The exchange ran for six weeks. At the end, both schools asked to continue. Maltha documented the full curriculum and handed it to both partner teachers so it could run independently. "That was the goal all along," she says. "Build something that doesn't need me to keep going."