In the course of a career in education and activism spanning more than five decades, Samira produced hundreds of lectures, articles, and speeches dedicated to a variety of political and cultural topics. Always eager for the next project, she never paused to collect and publish parts of this intellectual output - even though there were always those who sought her work and with whom she generously shared her manuscripts.
In the later part of her career as activist and educator she became involved with kindergartens and schools for Palestinian and southern Lebanese children. For them, she co-founded a school, edited a children’s magazine, and wrote stories.
Samira’s special stories are often open-ended; they do not provide simple answers or moral lessons. Instead, they approach children by posing complex questions and inviting them to become partners in writing the endings - in teaching us how to arrive at a peaceful and just world for all. Samira sat with her children to read and listen. How do we protect our home? she asked. She left the answer to young children whose homes had been destroyed, but she made sure they knew that a safe, embracing home was their legal human right. Dearest to her heart, The Red Butterfly, a creature she liked since childhood, expressed her own yearning for freedom. The text reads like a short poem written in simple words for very young children. The red butterfly lived in an ideal world; a free Palestine. It simply flew free. It flew and set down, sometimes on a flower or on a branch, then freely and happily flew away again. Freedom of movement, the right to fly away and return, the right to a home – all guaranteed by the United Nations as a universal human right – were the ideas and freedoms The Red Butterfly brought to children for whom these freedoms were just a dream.
May Samira’s originality, commitment, and openness always be present in the world, while her spirit flies free.