Yet again, the MiniActive women in East Jerusalem have proven how effective their activism can be. After more than four months of their public campaign, “We won’t live in filth!” they’ve succeeded in obtaining an additional 3 million shekels toward sanitation in East Jerusalem to the Municipality’s budget! These funds will be added in 2016, and continue annually.
“We Don’t Want to Live in Filth!” Campaign
We’ve written about the campaign that MiniActive has been heading since the fall of 2015 here and here. In addition, the “0202” Facebook pages have translated these posts into both the veteran Hebrew page as well as the new English page:
These popular pages (over 15,000 likes in Hebrew over the past year, over 1,200 likes in English over the past two months) are followed closely by both municipality officials as well as journalists, and everyone who is anybody who cares about what happens in Jerusalem. In addition, we started tagging City Council members in the 0202 posts as well. “Hitorerut” party Council Members were those who made the efforts to impact 2016 budget in this regard.
The result – an additional 3 million shekels was allocated in the 2016 for sanitation in East Jerusalem, as well as 16 million shekels for purchases of equipment and vehicles that can be used in East Jerusalem! Both the Director General of the Municipality and the Director Operations Dept. supported this measure.
Garbage garbage, every day
Our work hasn’t ended with the approval of the additional budget – we will be there to ensure that the equipment that is purchased will meet the needs of East Jerusalem’s Palestinian residents. For example – the garbage trucks that are purchased will be able to navigate East Jerusalem’s narrow streets and alleyways.
An equally important takeaway from this process – municipal officials are now talking about garbage in East Jerusalem as a central problem that can’t be swept away using an old decrepit street-sweeping machine.
We’re very excited about this news, but it’s not our success – it’s that of the MiniActive network, and that of the Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem. Kol Hakavod! Kul ElIhtiram (كل الاحترام)! May we soon see the difference in the streets and garbage cans.
Many thanks to the Jerusalem Foundation for their continuing support of this program.
