Go in the Earthcharter Community Dialogue.

After investigation , i found there is not arab organization of women in this country but there many women organization who helped women to get in their developement.

Bomboso john
Kigali, Rwanda

Dear dennis. I will try to answer your message. First thank you for writing.
While I was reading your message, one thing came up in my mind. And i don't want to critisize, but these are facts. I am so surprised how few jewish Israelis know from their Arab neighbours, and therefore I will do my best to explain you and others on this website somethings.
First about education in Israel, and to be specific education at the Arab schools.
The first language is Arabic, in the 3rd grade Arab children start to learn Hebrew and in the 4th grade English. if they want to continue an academic study, they have to go to the universities were the language is Hebrew. Arab children have already a backwardness in hebrew when they start their study at universities. The few ones who enroll in academic learning will see that the Arab comunity in Israel is never an issue. I know this from firsthand, my daughter is studying sociology, but it is never about the arabs, or Palestinians. My husband studied the Arabic langugage and filosophy in hebrew at the haifa university.
Then the curriculum. It is never about the own history of the palestinian Arabs. they learn that in 1948 they have been liberated from the Arabs. They are not allowed to learn about their own poets. it is forbidden for Arab teachers to talk about the Nakba during his lessons.
And when they go to the university, many of them become allienated from their own background. There are hardly jobs for academics in the Arab community. So many female arab academics stay in the big cities, and we loose them. I can write a book about what the Israeli education means for the Arab community. But don't let me do that, I will try to focus on your comment.
A couple of years ago we had many requests from Arab women from the villages to implement courses empowerment/leadership in these villages. Then we found that it was hard to find female arab academic facilitators who could do the job. Not because arab women are stupid, but they never studied in arabic and about their own community. We started a course 'facilitating arab groups" for female academics. We focussed on our own community. For the students it was for the first time that they studied in arabic (we translated many things) and that they heard about their own community in an academic way. We will continue with these courses because first we will have a kader of Arab female academics who can support their own community, but it will also give some career boost for these women. many academic women are sitting at home, becasue there is no work. Another example. In january we will open the first school for arab women, adult learning and educational training. We are looking for teachers, we have about 10 job vacancies. We received 245 applications from whom 240 were women. They all finished their BA and some of them MA. But as you know, it is the ministry of education who appoints teachers, and they will never appoint Arab teachers for schools in the jewish neighbourhoods, and in the Arab community there is a lack of schools, and when a teacher has a steady job, he stays there for his entire life.
It is not only the government but also the arab community itself. Arab women are learning now that they can be leaders. But it goes slowly. And I personal think that it is not enough that women have leader positions, it is about what they are doing with their power. I know an Arab women who was during the last elections very high on the list of the Likud, I don;t think that we need those women to become our leaders. because the Likud never did something for the arabs.
Yes we need to educate women, we need to tell themthat they can be leaders too, tha tthey can make their own decisions. But you cna promise them a lot, as long as theyre is discrimination and less opportunities, it is hard. I hope that this was an answer on your comment. Regards Trees

You see Trees, many of us don't know much about Arab women.  It would be so great if you could let us know these facts and what you think can be done and then the whole ECI community can be educated, as Dennis says.

Of course there are a lot of Arab women who are doctors, lawyers etc. and here in Israel as well.  It would be so great if Israeli Jews and Muslims really knew a lot more about one another.  I was always surprised and dismayed about the lack real knowledge about the Other in Israel.   I am so glad that ECI can be a conduit for understanding.

Could you also let us know about the kinds of training you do at Al Zahraa and what YOU hope will be able to be done in the future.  

Also I know you are networked with other womens organizations in Israel.  Can you please let us know more about this too?

Finally as you have already stated the problem for Arab women comes from both cultural as well as from a government whose culture is in conflict with Arabs.  I know you are doing a lot to empower women in your area.  Can  you describe some of your success stories?

Stephanie 

Jill Rees
In the early 1970s the war between the English and the Irish was at its peak. Like in Israel, the English refused to call it a war, but called it 'the troubles'. The English army patrolled the streets of Belfast, and everywhere were roadblocks leading out of the cities. Alsthough entitled to dual nationality, check points lined the border of Ulster (between North and South Ireland. South Ireland was already an independant and separate nation). The religious barrier was between Catholics and Protestants, and the tension could be traced back to the 17th century and the Battle of the Boyne. Several years earlier, Sunday Bloody Sunday had seen citizens' blood flow freely in the cobbled streets among the back to back rows of working class houses.

The children of Catholics had never met or sometimes even seen children of the Protestants and vise versa. People lived in fear for their lives. The young children were running wild in the streets and throwing stones and rocks at the soldiers. Sometimes they would be arrested and ieventually often found themselves driven to the UK as adults, where they would be persecuted and jailed (see the Guildford Four and the Birmingham Six). The hatred was so great between the two communities that no-one believed it would ever end until everyone had been killed. Whispers in the English parliament suggested the only solution was to 'nuke' northern Ireland and have done with it.

Mothers were sick of it and everntually, meeting at the only playgroup which had children from both sides, and realising they had motherhood in common, the women of Northern Ireland formed groups, first protesting aganst the violence (1976 saw a huge womens march in London, many of the women had never before left Belfast) later forming playgroups, family centres and all sorts of community based groups. Gradually the two sides got to know each other, the women formed friendships and the children grew up together. Obviously it isn't at all fully integrated even now, there is still a wall separating two of the worst estates, but by 1990 there was enough common ground to make a peace agreement which still holds and looks as if it will become a lasting peace.

(see Betty Williams - Northern Irish peace activist who, with Mairéad Corrigan, founded the Community for Peace People in 1976 and with her shared the 1976 Nobel Prize for Peace. - Wikipaedia)

The women made peace there, the same thing will happen in Israel/Palestine. I've already seen it happen once and am absolutely certain, as they sang in the 1970s that 'We shall overcome'.

I wish you all well and am full of admiration for what you are doing. Hi to my friends in Israel.

The question is how we helped the widows. In fact we don't have a special program which focuss on widows. We are trying to help Arab women in general. However, women who are the head of their household, and main providers have a difficult life here. They don't have jobs, they don't have the proper education which can help them to have a job. Therefor Al Zahraa is focussing on women empowering, education and economic empowerment.
Empowering means that women feel that they are not alone. It means that they feel that there is support and understanding for their situation. A couple of years ago we started some courses economic empowerment. These courses were teaching women how to start their own business, or how to find a job. But then we found that there are no jobs for women in the Arab communities. There is a high rate of unemployment for men, so for women it is even more difficult to get jobs. The jobs are in the Jewish sector, and these jobs are mainly for manual workers, for example in factories etc. were the salaries are low.Anothe rproblem is that there is hardly public transport to the jewish cities, so for women with children it is hard to work there.
In 2008 we will start a school for Arab women, adult learning and vocational skills. In this school we will give arab women the opportunity to get theit bagrut diplom (High school certificate). Many wome married young and didn't finish the high school. We will provide literacy classes. Many women cannot read and write or are weak in reading and writing. And even if they can read and write Arabic, they don't know Hebrew, which they need to get a job as secretary, or even to go to the hospital, because everything here is Hebrew. therefor we wil also provide classes in hebrew.
We hope that, by establishing this school, more women in the future will go to higher education, or at least that they are able to find a job. In the school we will also appoint somebody who can support women in 'career counseling". This person will have relations with the employment offices and know were there are vacancies.
In general you can say that the situation for Arab women is all the same. Only the ones who are the main providers for their families, who lack a husband ( either widows or if the husband is unemployed or sick) are the poorest. And they need more help.

Pnina
האלה יקרה, תודה שהארת לנו את קשיי הדרך לאישה הערביה להשתלב בעולם המנהיגות והערכים. למרות, שבעולם הערבי הגדול אנו כן עדים למנהיגות נשית לא במספרן אלא בדברים שהן עושות ואומרות. לדעתי, על הנשים הערביות להחליט שהן אכן רוצות למלא תפקידים בכירים ומובילים ושיש להן ייעוד ותפקיד במשפחה, חברה ובעולם כולו. ברגע באדם מחליט החלטה, הוא מתחיל להתכוונן לכיוון שלה, וגם אם ישנן הפרעות, מיגבלות או קשיים - אין ספק שמי שמתמיד במשימה שלו יגיע בסופו של דבר למרות כל הקושי ואולי על-אף הקשיים אל הפיסגה מבחינה אנושית ויתן דוגמא לעולם כולו. אין ספק, שבעולם המושתת על כוח גברי על האישה להתאמץ יותר כדי לפלס לעצמה דרך ללכת בה. השאלה היא: האם יש מספיק נשים בעלות יוזמה ותחושת ייעוד על-מנת להתחיל לצעוד בדרך כלשהי לקידום המטרה? אנו יודעים על סמך הניסיון שמספיקה אישה אחת שתקום עם חזון וחלום על-מנת שתוכל לסחוף אחריה עוד נשים רבות אחרות, ויחד תוכלנה להגשים את חלומה של האישה הערביה.
יש להעיז באומץ לב, להתמיד ולא להישבר בפני המיכשולים ולהאמין בצידקת המטרה- שהיא קידום האישה הערביה בחברה.

If you have contact with any young women who have a specific interest in environment or peacebuilding - please let them know that there are scholarships available for any Israeli student and for Arab students in particular to study environmental studies at the Arava Institute for Environmental Studies.
contact is Mr. Cecil Rimer cecil.rimer@arava.org
and more info is available on the web site:
www.arava.org

We have had some very successful students from Sachnin, Kfar Maker, Turan, Sulam and other northern villages.
Sharón