Blog | The Jerusalem Intercultural Center

MiniActive On the Road Again

In previous posts we spoke about the work of the East Jerusalem Palestinian MiniActive volunteers helping to deal with unwanted waterfalls and streams, that developed as a result of the major winter storm in January 2013.

Winter damage in A-Tur

Now, we’re here to show pictures of streams and waterfalls that are supposed to be there…

Banias stream

And its famous waterfall

Earlier this week, a select group of MiniActive volunteers traveled north to the Golan Heights to enjoy the Hermon Stream Nature Reserve (known as the Banias). They left Jerusalem at the crack of dawn, drove all the way up to the Banias, had the full tour, ate lunch, and came back home.

Resting beside the stream

This trip is another thank-you to the hard work these women put in every week in improving everyday life in East Jerusalem, one phone call at a time. For example, recent issues include:

Getting a bench installed at a bus stop outside the Old City:

Bus stop bench

And reporting health hazards, including areas prone to rat infestation:

In Silwan

Naomi Roff2016-08-27T16:56:13+00:00July 5th, 2013|Blog, Effective Activism, Identity Groups and Conflicts, MiniActive, Palestinians/Arabs|

The JICC Presents: East Jerusalem

Over the past few years we’ve become one of the leading experts of community development work, especially in East Jerusalem. Last week we got to show this off in a number of forums:

First, on Monday, June 24 we presented the overall work of our East Jerusalem Desk, led by Ezadeen, to a group of researchers at the Jerusalem Institute of Israel Studies. These included (with links to relevant blog posts): working with neighborhood coalitions, the mental health forum, emergency response networks, paramedical professionals, MiniActive. Below is a response from Dr. Maya Choshen, researcher at the JIIS:

Dear Hagai,
The meeting with the JICC…was educational, encouraging and impressive…It is clear that a lot of heart and thought went into these projects; that is a wonderful combination…
I thought that nothing could top Cultural Competency (link) but the MiniActive program is no less impressive.
You contribute significantly to the quality of life [in Jerusalem], and all the words above can’t describe the joy and esteem I have for your work.

And if it couldn’t get better than that, on Thursday (June 27), Liana presented the MiniActive (click here for a more detailed description) project to the Jerusalem Municipality’s General Director. She, together with several other MiniActive volunteers, toured with him the streets of Wadi Joz. They showed him what each one had fixed on the street as part of the MiniActive project. This complete local ownership of the project, and pride in all its accomplishments, is one of the secrets to its success.

MiniActive and the Municipality General Director

Later on that day, Liana, Ezadeen and Hagai presented MiniActive achievements to a course of Department Heads at the Municipality, in an 8-hour tour.

In the afternoon, there was a celebration of social change projects in East Jerusalem. Out of the 120 women there, at least 80 were participants in the MiniActive project. There, too, Liana presented MiniActive to a forum that included quite a few senior officials.

Municipal officials and MiniActive

On Sunday (June 30) the MiniActive MVPs are out and about again – this time to the north – up to the Banias in the Golan Heights and back. Hopefully we’ll have some pictures to share soon.

Naomi Roff2014-04-11T18:24:23+00:00June 30th, 2013|Blog, Effective Activism, Identity Groups and Conflicts, MiniActive, Palestinians/Arabs|

Arabic Courses – Building a Bridge through Language – 2012-2013 year

We’re just now winding up the 2012 – 2013 year of Arabic classes or Hebrew speakers at the JICC. After 10 years of offering the courses, this year we had a bumper crop – 100 students in 7 classes over 5 levels!

These courses are not something we take for granted. When we started, we offered a pilot Arabic course in the Morasha Community Center, where we were based at the time, in parallel to a Hebrew course that was taking place at the Beit Hanina Community Center. The two groups met from time to time, which is no small feat, since it was then the height of the second Intifada. The peak event was a joint meeting at the old Beit Hanina Community Center, which was just a stone’s throw from the Qalandia military checkpoint, on May 15, Naqba Day (Day of the Catastrophe, the day after Israel declared its independence). Our students received the warmest of receptions, while just a kilometer north of there were violent outbursts at the checkpoint.

After the pilot years, with our growing partnership with the Jerusalem Foundation, we held courses at the Hand in Hand School for Bilingual Education, who let us utilize their facilities. There was a beginner’s course and a (very small) intermediate course.

We’ve been hosting the courses at our current facility on Mt. Zion since we moved here at the end of 2006 (this is as far back as we’ve been documenting them on our blog). Since then, we’ve been growing from year to year, adding classes and levels, until we finally reached the 100 mark.

This year, too, we went back to the Hand in Hand School, this time on their new campus. They were looking for a group with Arabic advanced enough to engage in conversation with participants in their Hebrew class for Arabic speakers during the class breaks. (We tried it before with beginners; it wasn’t too successful) We were happy to expand the physical outreach of our classes. Thus, this year the 10 students in our most advanced class (level 5) studied at the Max Rayne Hand in Hand School for Bilingual Education, which is now located in the southern neighborhood of Pat, just a few hundred meters from Beit Safafa. In parallel, at the JICC building, the other 6 groups in levels 1-4, continued learning.

What makes our classes so special? First, the teachers. They’re the ones who make the classes so enjoyable and effective for the students. They don’t just teach from the book (although there is a book, and students do learn to read and write), they bring their whole selves into the classroom and teach Arabic as their own – teaching their culture, bringing their stories from home and from their families, learning through songs (on CD’s), making it fun. They go on tours of the Old City. When the Old City is blocked off and classes can’t be held at the JICC, classes meet in students’ homes.

Second the students – all use (or are exposed to) Arabic on an almost daily basis. They’re students, teachers, volunteers, activists, workers in the field, and more. Maybe one could be you? But act fast, places are filling up. We already have at least 25 already signed up for next year.

Naomi Roff2014-04-11T18:21:07+00:00June 25th, 2013|Blog, Courses, Language Center|

MiniActive – On the Move

The MiniActive women are on the move again. With their ranks growing quickly reaching 1,000 (only a few months ago we counted 180) we’ve been looking for ways to reward our volunteers for their dedication and hard work. Below are just a few examples.

We then teamed up with a program that was seeking to teach residents of East Jerusalem about the environment. Some 50 of the MiniActive participants were more than happy to participate. As part of the program, in February the women had a special trip to the Ariel Sharon Park, Jaffa and an ecological farm outside Modi’in. The Ariel Sharon Park is built on the Hiriya garbage dump that received all the garbage from the Tel Aviv metropolitan area for nearly 50 years. Today the Ariel Sharon Park is not only where Israel’s central region’s garbage is sorted for recycling, it aims to be the ‘green lung’ of the central region, the largest in a planned chain of parks in the Tel Aviv area. After lunch and a stop at a historical mosque in Jaffa, the women visited an ecological farm outside of Modi’in. There they learned about the lifestyle of living as close as possible to nature, from growing their own herbs and vegetables to recycling grey water, composting, producing medicinal herbs, and more.

At the Ariel Sharon Park

These women continue to be active, meeting with school principals and raising awareness among the general population.

Raising awareness

Starting at the beginning of May, we’ve been holding a series of tours inside the walls of the Old City. These 3-hour tours each cover a separate section of the Old City, and utilize stories from Arab history and traditions to enrich the subject matter. These tours are not only fun, they also teach the women about parts of the city they may never have seen before. There are 10 – 15 women on each tour. Each time, different women participate. Thanks to Dr. Anwar for his dedicated service.

Inside the Old City

The women also recently took a trip to Haifa and Acre. In Haifa they visited the beautiful Bahai Gardens. In Acre they toured the ancient city, and enjoyed a boat ride.

At the Bahai Gardens in Haifa

Next week, a trip to the Banias.

The hundreds of participants in the different programs had a wonderful time. We hope to have many more of these kinds of opportunities to thank each and every one of our volunteers. They deserve it.

Naomi Roff2014-04-11T18:18:50+00:00June 14th, 2013|Blog, Effective Activism, Identity Groups and Conflicts, MiniActive, Palestinians/Arabs|

Paramedical Professional Training Program – Now Physical Therapy

How sweet it is to see the fruits of your labors pay off, and to see a program expanding to fill critical needs. Thanks to assistance from the Hadassah Foundation and the Jerusalem Foundation (More recently the Leichtag Foundation has also joined us as a partner in this amazing program), this year we’ve expanded our training program for Palestinian graduates of paramedical professions to include students of physical therapy. One by one, we hope to develop courses for all paramedical professions, to enable graduates to pass the Israeli certification examinations, which are required to work legally in East Jerusalem.

We began the project last year, with seed funding from the Jerusalem Foundation (click here for links to posts one and two on the courses), and the results were fantastic – 26 of 39 nursing students passed the exam, and 8 of the 14 occupational therapy students passed the exam.

Nurses in the new course

Given the dearth of paramedical professions across the board in East Jerusalem, our main goal was to develop courses in as many disciplines as possible. Our next discipline – physical therapy. Developing a course for physical therapy was more challenging than for nursing or occupational therapy, especially since there aren’t schools for physical therapy (like there are for occupational therapy and nursing) in Jerusalem. Working with an outside consultant and the Ministry of Health, we planned the curriculum. We gathered 16 participants for our pilot course. Weekly classes began at the beginning of June and will prepare participants for the exam that will be held in November 2013.

Another meeting of the nursing course

These 18 joined another group of 30 who began studying in March for the nursing exam that will take place in September. As for Occupational Therapy, we’ve just finished helping 4 people prepare independently for the June exam, and we’ll start a proper course in September, leading up to the December exam.
We wish all graduates and students the best of luck in their studies and exams.

Naomi Roff2016-04-28T15:40:40+00:00June 10th, 2013|Blog, Cultural Competence, Cultural Competence in Health Services, Education, Employment, Identity Groups and Conflicts, Palestinians/Arabs, Supporting employment in East Jerusalem|

Neighbors…. Haredi and non-Haredi in Kiryat Hayovel and Rehavia

Neighbors. Neighbors can be a problem, even in the best of communities. But what happens when neighbors move in who are very different from you? Or when old-time neighbors’ families grow and grow, and seem to be taking over the very nature of your neighborhood? From the ‘other’ side – you’re just looking to living in a nice neighborhood with your family – what’s all the fuss about?

This has been the dynamic in two Jewish neighborhoods – Rehavia and Kiryat Hayovel – that we’ve been working in recently. Both are traditionally secular / national religious neighborhoods – in fact, they’re considered bastions of these populations in Jerusalem. Recently, Kiryat Hayovel has seen an influx of new Haredi residents. In Rehavia, there has always been a Haredi community, but in recent years more and more Haredi families were getting in the neighborhood, changing the demographics. In a city where the Haredi population is growing quickly and non-Haredi populations are feeling threatened, this can definitely cause tensions.

However, if one of our goals is to work to preserve a diverse Jerusalem, tensions are the last thing we need. So in an effort to assuage building tensions between the Haredi and non-Haredi residents of Rehavia and Kiryat Yovel, and thanks to the support of the Jerusalem Foundation and the UJA-Federation of New York, we’re working with 2 very special neighborhood forums.

In Rehavia, we’re working together with the local community council with a group of 20 Haredi and non-Haredi residents, many of them are the leaders of their communities. This includes a fascinating combination of young and older people, national religious, as well as Haredi and secular, men and women. By the end of the second meeting we’d come up with a Summary of Principles for working together. This of course doesn’t mean that individual – and sometimes far-reaching – issues have been solved. But right now we’re focusing on the ‘how we handle issues’, before we move on to the ‘what is the solution’. This includes sometimes basic statements, such as ‘live and let live’, ‘mutual respect’, ‘love of the neighborhood’ and an ’emphasis that we’re all one people’. But we all know that when tension threatens to boil over we need simple, basic principles to guide us through. This group has met twice, and will continue to meet. It has been decided to significantly expand this forum, so that broader agreements can be made and more people and groups can be represented.

In Kiryat Yovel the situation is a bit different. The entrance of Haredi families, even as a small percentage of the population, has raised numerous battle cries against the ‘Haredization’ of Kiryat Yovel, which arises in various forms from time to time. The group in Kiryat Yovel is still smaller – 8 people, all are main leaders – and thus far the two meetings have consist of ‘getting to know you’ conversations. Yet, because Haredi-non-Haredi relations are much terser than in Rehavia, the very existence of these meetings is of utmost importance. While Kiryat Yovel is a tougher nut to crack, we believe we’re on the right path, creating a safe haven for dialogue and conflict resolution. In the last meeting, two Neighborhood Council members hugged each other at the end. This was an unusual occurrence, since one was Haredi and the other was secular who is very active against the Haredization of the neighborhood. “Finally, here, I can give you a hug,” said the Haredi Council member. Another, a secular woman, requested that Haredi women come as well, so that she wouldn’t feel lonely. Currently there is no other place this could happen.

In both neighborhoods, there is energy to continue the processes, and a feeling of hope that is very important for the future of these communities, as well as for Jerusalem.

jicc2014-04-04T12:57:50+00:00May 30th, 2013|Blog, Deliberative Democracy, Identity Groups and Conflicts, Inter-Cultural Community Dialogue, Jewish Religious Denominations, Kiryat Yovel, Rehavia, Ultra-Orthodox Jews|

Happy 90th birthday Talpiot-Arnona!

We’re feeling a bit of parental pride these days. With assistance from the UJA-Federation of New York, we’ve been working intensively with residents in the Talpiot – Arnona area in methods of deliberative democracy. The goals – engage residents in their community, enable them to take ownership of their community, making it a place they want to be, and stemming years of negative migration of Jerusalem’s young families and professionals.

When we began, the Arnona-Talpiot area was officially part of the Greater Baka’a Community Council catchment area. However, residents did not cross Derech Hebron to the main Community Council facility to receive services, nor did the Community Council staff make efforts to include Talpiot-Arnona residents in its activities. From a community standpoint, it was dormant – no community events; its commercial centers were quiet, barren places; no more than 3-4 children were found in playgrounds at one time.

Last fall we began working with the Community Council, the newly-elected neighborhood committee members from the area, and interested residents. We helped them form several task teams that concentrated on bringing about practical change throughout the neighborhood in a number of areas: the environment, public spaces, Jewish-Arab coexistence, local security, forming community gardens, and more.

This activity seemed to wake up the community, and developments were quick to come. This process had given residents a chance to take responsibility for their neighborhood, to influence the public sphere, to initiate projects, to become a part of the decision-making process, together with the Community Council, and they scooped up the opportunity. The original task teams bore additional ideas for action, which, in a period of only a few months, led to the idea of a huge, neighborhood-wide event, open to the entire city, celebrating Arnona’s 90th anniversary. The fact that the event grew from idea to fruition in only a few short months – returning vibrancy to the neighborhood – is a tribute to the transformation that has taken place over the past year.

Entertainment for the whole family in the commercial center

The positive ripple effects were felt near and far. Residents rallied to the cause. Institutions, organizations, businesses and local artists – all wanted to be a part, to contribute to help make the event an amazing one. Their reward – a renewed sense of community in Arnona, a feeling of pride and solidarity.

The afternoon – evening of May 23 was chock full of events, from the fairs and performances in the neighborhood commercial center to community garden to Shai Agnon’s house to exhibits in artists’ homes, to tours of the community. (Click here for the event’s web site in Hebrew). “We are happy to invite you to a community event, the product of the community processes we held over the past year,” reads the invitation’s accompanying letter. “Over the past months we have held a number of meetings with residents in which task teams were formed that deal with many areas. [That’s where we came in, by the way.] We are surprised to discover how diverse and how many community institutions there are in the neighborhood…We invite everyone, children and adults, to participate in the event and to enjoy a wonderful chance to start on a new path in the neighborhood.”

Arts and crafts in the commercial center

We can safely say the event accomplished its goal. People came out from their hibernation, met friends and neighborhoods, got to know a little about the neighborhood in which they live. The commercial center has never seen so many people. People attended the artists’ open houses, as well as tours of the neighborhood. Indeed, the feeling of pride and excitement – and a new beginning – was palpable at all the event venues.
Residents, together with institutions in the neighborhood and staff from the Community Council, were the ones who did all the work. But we’re still taking kvelling rights on this one, and we’re proud of our part in the process.

Performance in the community garden

jicc2014-04-11T16:11:42+00:00May 23rd, 2013|Blog, Deliberative Democracy, Inter-Cultural Community Dialogue, Larger Baka Community Council|

Neighbors as Your Safety Net: Community Empowerment toward Emergency Readiness

Neighbors can be problematic (click here for a recent post about such neighbors), but they can also save your life, especially in an emergency. In the Emergency Response Networks program in east Jerusalem, we are helping bottom-up grassroots initiatives of residents to build the skills and capacity for emergency preparedness.

Imagine an earthquake. Especially in an area such as east Jerusalem, where infrastructure is poor – roads are narrow and poorly kept on good days, many buildings and additions did not take into consideration building codes and safety standards.

There is no time. Buildings have crumbled. Pipes and gas lines might have burst, power lines might be down. People might be trapped, and time is not on your side. All around the world, experts say that for the first few days – the community cannot hope for rescue teams to come from somewhere else. The formal rescue teams are going to be busy, very busy.

The best solution for these first few days is a team of local volunteers, who are responsible for the Emergency Response Network of the neighborhood. This team is trained in advance. As a part of their preparation, they create a detailed plan to have in place. All relevant infrastructure and equipment in the neighborhood will have been mapped – the schools and other public buildings, the health clinics, ambulances and other medical equipment, bulldozers, trucks and other heavy machinery, everything possible in the neighborhood that might help in an emergency. All relevant professionals in the neighborhood will also have been mapped and coordinated – from nurses and doctors to social workers to construction workers and engineers. They will have been organized into clusters by a number of resident-cluster heads. The Israeli police and other rescue workers will also have been notified, so that they know who from the neighborhood is in charge and so that rescue efforts can be streamlined.

We’ve been working to develop such Emergency Response Networks for the past 3 years, and currently there are trained teams in the neighborhoods of Jabel El-Mukaber and Silwan, Abu-Tor and Sur Baher, covering tens of thousands of east Jerusalem residents (out of 300,000 residents in East Jerusalem). Today they undergo practice simulation exercises like those described above. An earthquake is just one example of such an emergency to be prepared for. The concept of local team based on residents is novel. Usually in Israel these “local teams” are based on professionals who work in the community. But many of them reside outside the community, and it might be that in an emergency such as an earthquake, they will find it hard to come. The intensive mapping of resources is also unique to East Jerusalem – in neighborhoods that were originally villages of a few large families, where most people knew each other anyway, mapping and recruitment of community members that have expertise and tools (As bulldozers) is easier.

But we were frustrated…. The current training model enabled us to cover just 10% of East Jerusalem over 3 years. So now, based on what we’ve learnt so far, we are improving our pace. Utilizing a ‘Train the Trainers’ methodology, we are on the brink of training teams in all east Jerusalem neighborhoods over the next 2 years. Starting next week, on May 20, we are supervising the training of 12 Emergency Response Network trainers. These leaders had been trained before to be in their own local emergency team; now we are training them to train others. When these trainers complete the 40 hour course by the middle of July, they will then be able to organize and train volunteers in each of the neighborhoods, and survey the physical and human infrastructure in the neighborhoods. That work will take time (albeit, much less than in our previous model), but the results will be well worth the wait.

What is fascinating about this project is that neighborhoods do not only learn to save lives and save their neighborhoods in the case of an emergency. They also get to know one another and pool local resources. They are been empowered to help their community, whether they are doctors, social workers, teachers or construction workers. They are their own safety net. In the week of flood this winter (that ended with a full-blown snowstorm), these teams helped a lot in solving local problems of closed roads etc., whenever the citywide limited resources could not get in. This week showed the importance of these networks, even without major emergency situation.

Naomi Roff2014-04-11T16:06:59+00:00May 15th, 2013|Blog, Identity Groups and Conflicts, Palestinians/Arabs, Silwan Community Dialogue, Tsur Baher Community Dialogue|

A Workshop about our Cultural Competence in Healthcare Handbook

Americans do it; Europeans do it; even some South Africans do it. But how do Israelis do it? How do Israelis make their health care organizations culturally competent?

We’ve been training health care staff in cultural competency since 2008, and the Ministry of Health has more recently begun training, in light of the Ministry’s 2011 Directive on Cultural Competency. But what’s been missing has been a guide that spells everything out, which coordinators can refer to once they’ve finished the training courses. One that provides the internationally-tested standards of cultural competency, adapted to the unique makeup of Israeli society and everyday Israeli reality.

We are now in the final stages of such a handbook, our Manual for Integrating Cultural competence in Health Care Organizations. This manual is not only the first of its kind in Israel to deal with cultural competency for health care, it is the first of its kind in Israel to deal with cultural competency in any discipline. It is one of our dreams to bring culturally competency approaches to other areas of life in Jerusalem and throughout Israel – from local and national government offices to the police to other public agencies.

As part of the development process for the handbook, on 22 April 2013 we held a day-long seminar for 30 cultural competency coordinators from major health institutions, as well as others who work and research the field, around the country. Our goal for the day was to improve the handbook and to learn from the many people who are already working in the field in Israel.

We were pleased by the diverse turnout. Some had taken our training course, some had taken that of the Ministry of Health, and others had taken neither. The variety of institutions represented was also rather wide: Sheba-Tel Hashomer and Tel Aviv Sourasky (Ichilov, where the seminar was held) hospitals in Tel Aviv, Rambam in Haifa, both Hadassah hospitals in Jerusalem, as well as hospitals in Tiberias and Sefad; four of the eight mental health facilities in Israel; Ministry of Health; Israeli HMO’s; and independent consultants.
Throughout the morning, we got down to work. We utilized the ‘world café’ deliberation method, with one moderator at each table, each table focusing on a different subject from the handbook: from language accessibility, evaluation and making the workplace accessible, training, and definition of the role of the cultural competency coordinator, to the first 10 steps of cultural competency. The groups discussed each area, commented, made suggestions, and brought up new ideas regarding this part. After some time, participants chose another topic, but the moderators stayed in place. In all, we made such 3 rounds, and we discussed the main suggestions and understandings in the summary session.

All told, we came away from the seminar rich in knowledge that will help us to update the handbook. And the participants were quite enthusiastic about the meeting as well, as a number expressed their desire to continue these professional encounters. “This encounter was very important,” said Maya Tzaban, from Poriyah Hospital near Tiberias. “Now I see that we are not alone, added Varda Stenger from Sheba – Tel Hashomer, “that we are a network, and can work together.”

Indeed, although we’ve held encounters with coordinators who’ve taken our courses, and the Ministry of Health has held encounters for graduates of their courses, this is the first time that all cultural competency coordinators have come together for peer discussion, learning and action as a professional network. In light of the feedback, preliminary plans are underway for follow-up meetings.

Additional take-away suggestions included:

Forming smaller, more focused groups that could discuss their common challenges and situations – such as mental health hospitals, HMO’s, etc.
Adapt the manual slightly for the different types of institutions that use it – general hospitals, psychiatric hospitals, HMO’s, primary clinics, etc.

Feedback on the manual in general was also very positive. Participants commented that that it helps to give a full picture of cultural competency and initial steps of implementation. They were also eager to provide feedback to refine the document. “I have the time and I’d love to give my input,” said Anat Revach, from the Jerusalem Center for Mental Health. “I want to be part of this process.”

jicc2014-04-04T12:57:51+00:00April 22nd, 2013|Blog, Cultural Competence, Cultural Competence in Health Services|

MiniActive – Becoming Part of the Solution

MiniActive started ‘small’ (here’s its genesis story), with tens, hundreds, and now nearly 1,000 women monitoring and fixing everyday problems – street lights, potholes, garbage collection. We’re super proud of the magnificent growth this program has shown over the past few months, and of the dozens of sanitation and infrastructure problems the project has taken care of over the past few months in East Jerusalem (and the hundreds more that are in the pipeline). But the 3 first aid courses that finished last week is a slightly different example of how this grassroots initiative is quickly organizing solutions to critical problems.

The problem: a severe dearth of people qualified to accompany school trips as medics (which is required for school groups). That’s not to mention a general lack of knowledge about general first-aid procedures in the general public.

Learning CPR

Some 50 women participated in the 20-hour courses from all over East Jerusalem. Of these, 20 were chosen to study in a 60-hour course that will qualify them to accompany school trips. The course was taught, voluntarily, by professionals from the Emergency – Welfare, Assistance, First Aid and Response organization, which is associated with the United Hatzalah organization.

Thank you, teachers, for the donated hours. Thank you, women, for your willingness to step up and be a part of the solution. We’re sure this is just the beginning.

Instructor teaching first aid

Naomi Roff2014-04-11T16:05:25+00:00April 15th, 2013|Blog, Effective Activism, Identity Groups and Conflicts, MiniActive, Palestinians/Arabs|

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