Effective Activism | The Jerusalem Intercultural Center

Little Prince – Even Rosh Hashanah Greetings Have a ‘Cleaning Up Jerusalem’ Theme

Every year, the Jerusalem Municipality wishes its Jewish residents a Happy Jewish New Year for Rosh Hashana. We’d like to take a minute to do the same:

Happy New Year from the JICC

This year, in keeping with his promise to make cleanliness in Jerusalem a top priority (you can read about that here, here, and here), even the Municipality’s New Year’s Greeting has a ‘Cleaning Up Jerusalem’ Theme. It was written about in the Ma’ariv daily online newspaper, here. This main priority of the Municipality towards cleaning the city, is the result of the effective cross-cultural activist group gathered in our the Little Prince – Cleaning Up Jerusalem Together initiative.

You can see the short Municipality Happy New Year video here:

We’d like to express our appreciation to the Municipality on all levels for their cooperation on the issue of clean streets. We’ve shown that, together, change is indeed possible!

Many thanks to the Jerusalem Foundation and the US Embassy in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv for its continued support of the Little Prince!

Naomi Roff2020-10-23T10:55:19+00:00September 25th, 2020|Blog, The Little Prince - Cleaning Jerusalem Together|

Little Prince – Building Partnerships with the Municipality in Cleaning Up Jerusalem

In mid-August, we reported here about developing the joint work between residents from different neighborhoods and the municipal Sanitation Department. This is the result of the effective cross-cultural activist group gathered in our the Little Prince – Cleaning Up Jerusalem Together initiative. The goal is to promote the common goal of cleaning the city, while maintaining the principles of public participation: transparency, fairness, broad and informed decision making, and more.

Every meeting is a Zoom meeting these days

On Thursday, September 10, 2020, we held a second working meeting (via Zoom, of course!) with municipal officials, this time with the Enforcement and Policing Division. Ilan Sasson, Director of the Department, explained the current situation to the residents, and all spoke about wanting to employ and train many more city inspectors who oversee not only construction, parking, and business regulations, but also make sure that municipal ordinances for clean streets are also being followed. (There is currently a shortage of manpower in the department.)

In order to change residents’ habits from dirtying streets to maintain clean streets and supporting the work done by the Sanitation Department, it was agreed that it is necessary to significantly increase the number of tickets given for littering throughout the city. In order to streamline the work of the inspectors and keep Jerusalem clean, we were asked to assist the Municipal Supervision Division, by making a list of public places where residents regularly dump garbage (for example: playgrounds, parks, bus stops, street benches, etc.) and the times of day there are usually people there who are littering. The municipal inspectors will make sure to send inspectors to those places.

We are very grateful to the Jerusalem Municipality, which sees the residents as a resource and uses them to promote common interests such as cleaning up the city.

And here’s the post that was published in the Little Prince’s Facebook group:

Many thanks to the Jerusalem Foundation and the US Embassy in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv for its continued support of the Little Prince!

Naomi Roff2020-10-23T11:15:08+00:00September 18th, 2020|Blog, The Little Prince - Cleaning Jerusalem Together|

MiniActive – Finding New Ways to Help East Jerusalem Palestinians Fight the Coronavirus

During the first wave of the novel coronavirus, East Jerusalem was barely hit. Unfortunately, as noted here and here, this time around, the picture is vastly different.

Examples of posts

The MiniActive network of 1,000 Palestinian women from East Jerusalem is rising to the call. In addition to videos that were made and disseminated on Facebook (you can read about that here), they are also helping in a citywide effort to establish an Arabic-language website that will collect all the relevant information from numerous sources in one space.

Part of this effort includes a question and answer section, which will be uploaded to the site. Until now, they’ve raised 19 questions, and all the relevant bodies are in the process of answering them.

Questions include: “Why are there people who manage to cancel the forced quarantine?”

This refers to a public process whereby residents receive SMS messages, “You’ve been found to have been near someone who was diagnosed with COVID-19. You must self-quarantine at home until XXX date.” These messages are based on contact tracing methods, and legally require anyone who receives them to self-quarantine at home until the noted date. The answer to the question? If you can prove that you were NOT at that particular place at the particular time noted (While this method has been largely successful, there are sometimes mistakes.), and the person who you were supposed to have been in contact with is NOT a close family member or other member of your household, then the quarantine can be cancelled.

Another question: “If a person was diagnosed with COVID-19, how are the rest of the members of the household supposed to be checked? Are they to go to a local testing station or to have Magen David Adom test them at their homes?”

The answer – they need to have MDA come to their homes to test them. As soon as one family member is diagnosed, they must not be going out of the house so as not to spread the disease even more.”

Here are posts from MiniActive’s Facebook page telling about these Q&A sessions:

And many thanks to the Jerusalem Foundation and to Natan for their ongoing support of MiniActive!

Naomi Roff2020-10-09T11:45:27+00:00September 15th, 2020|Blog, Effective Activism, MiniActive|

MiniActive – Online Anti-COVID-19 Workshops

We’ve written here, here, and here about how the MiniActive network of 1,000 Palestinian women in East Jerusalem is helping to fight this wave of the coronavirus.

Yet another direction their taking is through online testimonials, followed by sincere and honest questions and answers.

First Zoom session with 50 participants

They are doing this through Zoom sessions every few days for women in the network, each time discussing a different aspect of how the coronavirus has affected the lives of different women.

Many participants tuned in to hear about coronavirus in the family first-hand

On August 30, for example, one woman – one of MiniActive’s volunteer regional coordinators – discussed how it was for her and her family to live through the coronavirus. Nearly 50 people attended this Zoom session. Here’s a Facebook post from MiniActive about it:

In a second session, a woman, who accompanies her sick son to tests and treatments at the hospital, described how one should – or should not – act in hospitals and medical centers, especially during the coronavirus crisis. She also spoke about how things many people do – which are not according to the guidelines – serve to spread the disease and make matters much worse. There were some 30 women who participated in this session. Here’s the Facebook post from the MiniActive page regarding that session:

MiniActive plans to continue these sessions, each time focusing on a different aspect. In the near future, for example, the project will feature a doctor to speak about some of the medical aspects. We’ll keep you posted!

Many thanks to the Jerusalem Foundation and to Natan for their ongoing support of MiniActive!

Naomi Roff2020-09-19T10:32:44+00:00September 11th, 2020|Blog, MiniActive|

MiniActive Women in Municipality Video – Urging East Jerusalem Residents to Follow COVID-19 Regulations

We wrote here, here, and here about East Jerusalem’s fantastic fight against the coronavirus in the spring of 2020. The Jerusalem Post even wrote about it here.

Unfortunately, the situation today is much worse, with Palestinian neighborhoods in East Jerusalem being among the hardest hit in the city. You can read here about what’s going on.

Facebook page where videos were uploaded

Since its establishment in 2012, the MiniActive women have been leading the way in a number of social causes from garbage collection to physical infrastructure in the neighborhoods. Since the beginning of the coronavirus crisis they have also been leading the way, disseminating information and helping local needy families. You can read about that here, here and here.

Now, MiniActive women are providing a women’s voice to the fight against coronavirus, in two videos that were made in cooperation with the Forum for East Jerusalem, which was formed to fight the coronavirus in East Jerusalem, together with the Jerusalem Municipality and other bodies.

Here’s one of the videos (in Arabic):

And here’s the other:

Let’s hope that these videos help the efforts to contain the coronavirus in East Jerusalem.

Many thanks to the Jerusalem Foundation and to Natan for their ongoing support of MiniActive!

Naomi Roff2020-09-19T10:35:32+00:00September 2nd, 2020|Blog, MiniActive|

A New Web Site for the Little Prince

The Little Prince has a new web site!

In May 2020 the Little Prince (well – the full name is “The Little Prince – Cleaning Jerusalem Together“) was 3 years old. This group of Jerusalemite activists – Jews, Arabs, religious and non-religious) is the main impetus for making Jerusalem a cleaner city a top priority of the Jerusalem Municipality. We are proud to be helping this activist community from day one and be the facilitators of many of its processes. In honor of this occasion and of the development and growth of the initiative, we decided to develop a website in Hebrew and Arabic.

Screen shot of Little Prince website

The site describes the project, presents its stages of development, success stories, and materials we created over the years. You can learn about our different methods, view pictures and articles about our work and achievements as a result of the work of our dedicated members.

We can final refer people to read about our accomplishments and enable them to contact us. You, too, are welcome to enter!

Here’s a link to the site: https://www.littleprince.org.il/

Many thanks to the Jerusalem Foundation, the Natan Fund, and the US Embassy in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, for their support of the Little Prince.

Naomi Roff2020-08-29T05:42:45+00:00August 30th, 2020|Blog, The Little Prince - Cleaning Jerusalem Together|

MiniActive Youth – Providing Relief and Enrichment during Corona Time

During this time of great uncertainty, MiniActive Youth continues to provide constructive activities, which help the community and also give the youth something positive to do during the summer break.

Doing constructive activities during summer break

Here, the youth built storage options, worked in the garden, and created their own raised beds.

Good times during summer vacation

They also had a healthy lunch. Yum!

Looks good!

Congratulations to the MiniActive Youth! Here’s the Facebook post:

And more pictures from work a few days before:

Many thanks to the Leichtag Foundation‘s Jerusalem Model for their support of this summertime initiative for youth. And many thanks to the Jerusalem Foundation and to Natan for their ongoing support of MiniActive!

Naomi Roff2020-09-11T04:54:52+00:00August 25th, 2020|Blog, MiniActive|

MiniActive – Providing Women with Important Life Skills in the Shadow of COVID-19

On Tuesday, August 11, MiniActive finished a 5-session life skills course for its members.

Learning life skills for success

This course gave the women skills to help them deal with the stresses of the day, especially those associated with the coronavirus crisis. We received very very positive feedback from the women. If they could have, they would have continued with the meetings.

Participants in the Life Skills course

Here are some pictures from the final meeting. Here’s a Facebook post (in Arabic) from the MiniActive Facebook page:

Many thanks to the Jerusalem Model for their support of this summertime initiative for youth. And many thanks to the Jerusalem Foundation and to Natan for their ongoing support of MiniActive!

Naomi Roff2020-08-19T13:44:17+00:00August 22nd, 2020|Blog, Identity Groups and Conflicts, MiniActive, Palestinians/Arabs|

Little Prince Begins Professional Partnership with Municipal Sanitation Department

The Little Prince ( “The Little Prince – Cleaning Jerusalem Together“) and the municipal operations department began their partnership about a year and a half ago.

The Little Prince activists established an extensive network of forums in which residents from all over the city met with the operations department, the division directors, the regional directors, the director of the 106 municipal hotline, the Community Services Department, and more.

Historic meeting with sanitation department

Through these forums residents and professionals could present plans, raise issues, devise solutions, develop initiatives and more.
In parallel, 5 working groups of residents were established together with: the Enforcement and Policing Division, the Sanitation Division, the Beautification Department, the 106 municipal hotline and the municipal PR and Spokesman’s office.
They created an empire of cooperation! Meetings, joint planning, consultation, carrying out projects.

And then came the coronavirus.

And, like nearly everywhere else, everything stopped.

After the lockdowns were lifted, there were those who said that this situation would not return, and that it was impossible to meet now and that it would not work via Zoom.

But this mutual partnership was important to both sides. Both the operations department and the members of the Little Prince friends did not give up. On Thursday, August 6, the first working meeting between members of the Little Prince and the Sanitation Department took place. It was an excellent meeting – professional, well organized and full of compliments and jokes. So if you’re wondering, it is possible to partner with the Municipality via Zoom. And it’s even fun!

Here’s a Facebook post about it (in Hebrew):

Many thanks to the Jerusalem Foundation, the Natan Fund, and the US Embassy in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, for their support of the Little Prince.

Naomi Roff2020-08-29T05:53:52+00:00August 18th, 2020|Blog, The Little Prince - Cleaning Jerusalem Together|

Little Prince: Inspiring Municipal Support Neighborhood Cleanup Projects

We’ve written here about how the Little Prince has been the impetus for making Jerusalem a clean city a top priority of the Jerusalem Municipality. A new initiative, calling for neighborhood-based programs, is another example.

This initiative, published on August 7 in the Jerusalem-based Kol Ha’Ir newspaper as a call for initiatives:

The Jerusalem Municipality calls on city residents to join forces and help municipal authorities improve the city and its urban landscape through funding for initiatives to clean up the city, which will be operated in residential neighborhoods across the city.

Municipal call for initiatives

As part of the municipal reform led by Mayor Moshe Lion, the municipality invites residents to propose neighborhood initiatives to clean up and improve the appearance of the city. Initiatives that are selected will receive full long-term funding, with the goal of becoming permanent community initiatives.

The purpose of the new project, noted the municipality, “is to create a clean and pleasant public space that enables a good quality of life, while promoting and encouraging residents’ involvement, growing neighborhood leadership and strengthening the sense of partnership in the city in general and in the neighborhood in particular. Keeping Jerusalem’s public spaces clean is a high priority of Mayor Lion.”…

Jerusalem Mayor Moshe Lion, said: “This project is part of the cleaning reform that I announced when I took office. The purpose of the project is to create cooperation and involvement of residents, in changing the face of the city, along with continued municipal activities in the area of cleaning up the city. I call on all residents to submit their proposals. And be a partner in the city’s cleaning revolution. “

You can read the full article here.

Many thanks to the Jerusalem Foundation, the Natan Fund, and the US Embassy in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, for their support of the Little Prince.

Naomi Roff2020-08-09T16:00:53+00:00August 11th, 2020|Blog, Promoting Tolerance in Jerusalem, The Little Prince - Cleaning Jerusalem Together|