The Community Service Center organized a field activity for students enrolled in the Community Service course to photograph and promote the Old City of Nablus through social media. Fifty male and female students participated in the tour to learn firsthand about the archaeological, architectural, religious, historical, and commercial sites the Old City contains, and to observe the details of life pulsating through its neighborhoods, markets, courtyards, and ancient landmarks.

The tour provided an opportunity to rediscover the details of the place, Nablus’s memory, identity, and history, and to learn about landmarks that many students—particularly those living outside the city—may not know.

The students’ relationship with the Old City varied before the tour began. Some entered it for the first time; others had heard about its markets, neighborhoods, and landmarks without having had the opportunity to visit them; while some had hoped to experience such a visit.

The students toured several neighborhoods, sites, and landmarks, learning about the old markets, courtyards, historic baths, soap factories, old palaces, guesthouses, institutions, and commercial shops, as well as the historical, heritage, social, and economic value represented by these sites. The students also documented the tour by taking photographs and filming video clips, with the aim of sharing their experience through their personal social media accounts, thereby helping convey a broader image of the Old City and its landmarks to their families, friends, and communities.

During the activity, the students’ interaction with the place was particularly striking. For many of them, the visit evolved from merely learning about historical landmarks into a personal experience that would remain in their memories, with its new sights, stories, details, and encounters, and the desire it sparked to return to the place and discover more of its secrets and landmarks.

At the end of the tour, the students took with them not only photos and video clips, but also a personal experience and a new impression of a place that may have been near them but that they had never discovered before. Thus, the visit became the beginning of another story—one that the student would share with family and others around them, encouraging them to shop in the old town and learn about its history, markets, alleyways, and landmarks, and to see its beauty and value, which deserve to be experienced, appreciated, and protected.