In an innovative effort to combine academia and professional training, SHATIL, in partnership with Tel-Aviv University, launched an intensive practicum entitled, “Communications and Social Responsibility.” The course pairs first-year masters’ students in communications with a variety of social change organizations, enabling them to develop projects tailored to the needs of each nonprofit.

The practicum empowers young people to develop professional expertise in various areas of communication, and gives them the tools to understand processes of social change. It also benefits the community of social change organizations, drawing on the skills, knowledge, experience, and motivation of students eager to leap into the world of media and civil society. In addition to their placements, the students meet once a month to participate in a class, team taught by Tel-Aviv University Professor Nurit Guttman and SHATIL media consultant, Ayelet Danon-Avraham.

According to Professor Guttman, this is the first masters program for communications in Israel that combines academic work with professional training. The pioneering cohort of 18 students is already making strides in an array of organizations, ranging from Green Peace to ASSAF, the Aid Organization for Refugees and Asylum Seekers in Israel. The students have initiated projects in their respective placements, drawing upon their skills in public speaking, public relations, social media, and marketing.

Amit Louis is interning at Kedma, an organization that promotes social and educational equality in Israel. In his few months at the organization, he developed a marketing and communications strategy to design a new website. For Amit, the program has provided an invaluable opportunity to experience the practical implementation of theory. Still, perhaps more importantly, it has opened his eyes to the social change scene – and to possibilities in his own future.

“Most of the time, when we study how organizations utilize communications techniques, it is usually in government agencies or corporations,” says Amit. “This program has given me the opportunity to see how it is done in NGOs. To tell you the truth, before starting this program, I had not considered working in the nonprofit world. Now, it is definitely a possibility.”

Ilana Yona, Kedma Director, is pleased with the program so far. “I have seen both our organization and our intern grow through this program,” she says.

Professor Guttmann adds: “The biggest impact of the program is the process that the students experience, personally engaging with work in the third sector. I already see development. They have become a part of the organizations, creating new projects and publishing articles. One student made such a successful impression that the organization offered her a job!”

(May 9, 2012)

sign reads: discrimination sponsored by the Jerusalem municipality

Tuesday, April 24, marked day 73 of the Ethiopian protest tent against racism, located directly outside of the Prime Minister’s residence in Jerusalem. SHATIL, in partnership with the Israel Association for Ethiopian Jews, is providing ongoing guidance to the effort. Gidon Ambaya, the SHATIL Community Organizer for the Ethiopian Community, has visited the protest tent almost every day, lending a sense of moral support in addition to his professional expertise.

With undeniable intensity and passion, Yamluck W. Ichasheman, a full time activist at the tent, illustrates the importance of the Ethiopian Israeli struggle for acceptance by telling a story.

“One day, a young Ethiopian Israeli child went to school. Like all other children, she hoped to learn and make friends. As the day went by, she became more and more discouraged as teachers and pupils taunted her because of the color of her skin. She arrived home that day and tried to wash the color off, desperate to fit in.”

Unfortunately, this was not an isolated incident.

The struggle against racism began 30 years ago, when the majority of Ethiopian Jews immigrated to Israel in search for freedom and tolerance, said Alimato Farda, an Ethiopian Israeli lawyer and one of the tent organizers. This protest tent, however, was born in a wave of activism earlier this year, when thousands of shocked Israelis, both Ethiopians and non-Ethiopians, took to the streets to protest an organized effort to ban apartment sales to Ethiopian Israelis in Kiryat Malakhi, home to a large Ethiopian Israeli community.

In the months following the protest, young Ethiopian Israelis are continuing to spread awareness about racism and discrimination against the Ethiopian Israeli community. The protest tent has become the center of this campaign, drawing hundreds of passersby to join the struggle in solidarity.

Seven full time activists run the tent, greeting visitors with smiles and information. The tent is comfortable and welcoming, stocked with coffee and desserts to encourage conversation. Bold posters demanding an end to racism surround the area, and a guestbook with notes of encouragement lies open on the table.

The tent has provided a dynamic space for workshops, youth trainings, and community meetings to combat all forms of discrimination against Ethiopian Israelis, including in matters of education, employment, housing, and religion.

SHATIL’s Gidon Ambaya worked with activists to organize a successful Passover Seder at the protest tent, drawing participants of both Ethiopian and non-Ethiopian descent. He also helped coordinate a Holocaust Memorial Day ceremony at the tent, emphasizing the importance of tolerance and acceptance. The tent itself is located on the same site as the previous Gilad Shalit protest tent, a site that has become a symbolic protest venue in Israel.

“I experienced anti-Semitism in Ethiopia…but it is hurts more to experience racism in Israel, in a community I consider my own,” says Ichasheman.

Recalling the story of the young school child, Ichasheman motions to his arm, as if to demonstrate that one cannot simply wash off color. He hopes to prevent the new generation of Ethiopian Israeli children, born in Israel, from having to face such discrimination.

“It doesn’t matter if you are purple, red, orange, or black,” he declared. “We all deserve respect.”

We did it! Activists celebrate postponement of Knesset vote on planning reform

Green Course demonstration, sign reads: This country is not for sale

The SHATIL-led Forum for Responsible Planning’s intensive lobby and media campaign against the government’s anti-social, anti-environmental, pro-rich planning reform bill succeeded in meeting its immediate goal: postponement of the vote until the next Knesset session. The massive media coverage, demonstrations, petitions, letters, emails, Facebook updates, internet campaigns,  pressure on MKs and ministers, making noise in Knesset committee meetings – and a bit of luck…worked. The significance of this is that the Knesset won’t vote on this bill that threatens to alter Israel’s social and environmental landscape beyond recognition, until it reconvenes in May, giving activists more time to educate and influence the public and to press for important change in the bill.

Since we reported on the campaign in the last NIF News, we will just say that concerned Israelis and environmental and social activists including the 30 members of the SHATIL-led Forum for Responsible Planning (Society for the Protection of nature in Israel; Israeli Union for Environmental Defense; Green Course; Movement for Quality Government; ACRI – Association for Civil Rights in Israel; Yedid; Bimkom – Planners for Planning Rights; and more) are celebrating the success and continuing the massive pressure to change the law and to push for the formation of a public committee that will examine Israel’s planning system.

In addition to postponing the vote, the campaign succeeded in raising the public’s awareness: Many people now know that this is not a law that will make it easier for the ordinary citizen to close in a porch, as the government’s spin on it  claims: It is an anti-democratic, anti-social anti-environmental disaster that will only raise housing prices. In addition, the Forum managed to local government authorities, architects, planners, lawyers — and even contractors to fight the reform. The heightened awareness and broader base will help us in our work on the reform in the next Knesset session. Israel’s social and environmental fabric are at stake!

For a longer, clear and thorough explication of the repercussions of passing the government’s planning law, see ACRI attorney Debbie Gild-Hayo’s article here: http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Op-EdContributors/Article.aspx?id=261881

If you missed the film clip on the planning reform last time: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWvjzSi4lHg

A first for Bedouin Women

Negev Bedouin women inspired and helped by SHATIL, AJEEC and other organizations, organized and participated in a march and demonstration against the recommendations of the government’s Prawer Committee. They claim the committee did not take into account Bedouin needs and wishes and that the Bedouin community does not agree with its conclusions.

Israel’s main TV channel One, featured Rina Okby, SHATIL’s Bedouin women’s project coordinator, and Amal El Sana of AJEEC, who led SHATIL’s last Bedouin Women’s Rights Course in its coverage of the march: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ygrnYzAbM28. Says Amal in the broadcast: “I believe that in the near future, Bedouin women will reach the Knesset and will be able to influence policy.”

The second  Knesset conference, “Israel 2020: Food Security – Government’s Responsibility to  implement Solutions and Create Employment ” hosted by the Knesset Caucus on Food Security  chaired by MK Ruhama Avrham was held on Monday, February 27 to promote a bill that would both create small businesses and provide culturally appropriate meals for school children.  A corollary issue addressed was the responsibility of the government to end hunger by enlisting creative solutions (currently implemented by NGOs) which must be supported by government resources.

Conference organizers included YEDID, Latet, Leket Israel, the Israel Center for Food Security, JDC-Israel, the Negev Institute for Strategies of Peace and Development (AJEEC) and SHATIL.

During the conference, organizations presented various strategies to combat hunger. In 2005, YEDID succeeded in persuading the Knesset to pass a law providing one hot meal a day to public primary school students in low income neighborhoods. To date it has reached only 80% of all the eligible children. The government has implemented the program by contracting with large food vendors and catering companies. There are two proposals to expand the program: One: to expand the hot lunch program to all elementary and junior high children and expand it to low income children during vacations; and two: rather than large catering companies, the government should use the National School Lunch Program budget to fund initiatives of local residents.  AJEEC presented their women’s kitchen initiative in the Bedouin village of Hura as a model for other communities. This plan would simultaneously offer food security to students and draw women out of the poverty cycle.

SHATIL proposed that the community kitchens models be used in many ways to create employment and combat hunger in a cost efficient way. This could be adapted in low-income areas including Israeli Arab and Bedouin neighborhoods, as well as immigrant populations — thus this initiative would be especially beneficial to minority communities.

The conference attracted over 200 attendees and closed with plans for key decision-makers to tour the cooperative kitchen in Hura and explore the implementation of similar institutions in low-income neighborhoods across Israel.

In a fruitful culmination of three years of activism, Shatil hosted two Knesset conferences this week focusing on advancing equitable, fair employment for women in Israel. The conferences were rooted in the Shatil Equality and Dignity at Work initiative, in conjunction with the Israeli Women’s Network and financed by the European Union and Hadassah Foundation, which seeks to instigate policy change that meaningfully addresses the inequalities that women face in the Israeli job market and workplace. Widely attended by MKs, charitable organizations, and social change activists, the conferences highlighted some of the most pressing concerns in the field and offered a variety of creative, constructive approaches to meet these challenges. Perhaps the most important attendees were Israeli working women themselves, budding social activists who are now empowered, through Shatil’s capacity building programs, to confront injustices in the workplace, join together, and engage with critical decision makers to improve their circumstances.

The conference, entitled “Women in Care Professions,” was held on February 21 in the Knesset in cooperation with the Adva Center and the Women’s Budget Forum. According to a Labor Force Survey conducted by the Central Bureau of Statistics in 2009, women make up 87.8% of the workforce in care professions, including nursery caregivers, youth protection workers, occupational trainers, and social workers. In the words of Tamar Adelstein-Zeckbach, a Shatil attorney who has also served at the Rackman Center for the Advancement of the Status of Women at Bar-Ilan University, this statistic reflects the social discourse of care professions as “women’s work,” rather than serious professions. As a result, women in this field suffer low wages and poor working conditions, despite the fact that care workers such as counselors for at-risk youth and mental health rehabilitation therapists perform crucial roles in our society. One youth advisor, Yael Sinai, said in a Shatil promotional video, “Stop taking advantage of our kindness and care.” Smadar Feingold, a social worker, firmly asks, “Allow us to work with respect.”

In the months leading up to the conference, Shatil has been working to create a Care Professions Forum, through which women in care professions can consult with each other, develop a sense of solidarity, and create the capacity to approach governmental institutions with specific grievances. Adelstein-Zeckbach adds, “It is easy to ignore one case, but it is much harder to ignore a forum.” The conference itself solidified this process of connection among the women, bringing them together to discuss issues of wages, working conditions, privatization of care professions, and the social appreciation of their work. Four MKs from across the political spectrum sponsored the conference, giving the women crucial access to policy-makers and government bodies. Additionally, Shatil successfully advanced a new bill that would obligate the government to mandate appropriate working conditions and wages in its contracting of employees in the care professions.

February 15, 2012

Shatil had a significant presence in the halls of power Wednesday, as the Knesset marked International Day for the Eradication of Poverty for the third year. Dozens of ordinary citizens filled a conference room with testimony of what life under the hard yoke of poverty is like and attended Knesset committee meetings called to discuss the issue. The conference, Dialogue between Residents, Organizations and Policy Makers: Toward a National Program to Eradicate Poverty was organized by the NIF-backed Forum for the Eradication of Poverty, a group composed of people living in poverty, social organizations (including Shatil), experts and professionals.

The launch of a new Knesset lobby to eradicate poverty, the fruit of the labors of Shatil and the Forum, was announced at the conference.

Twelve MKs and members of the press heard a young woman from Lod lament that her three-year-old knows what a gun looks like but did not know what building blocks are. An 80-year-old with the energy of a woman half her age passionately denounced the practice of removing children from the homes of poor single mothers and paying boarding schools for their tuition. “Why doesn’t the government give half of that money to the mother so she can raise her own children?!” she asked indignantly. Yet another described the unbearable pain she feels as she watches her one-year-old granddaughter become the third generation raised in poverty. She called on the government to replace the minimum wage with a “livable wage” with which workers could afford to pay for basic necessities.

Poverty in Israel is on the rise, and employment is no longer a guarantee against it. The neo-liberal promise of a trickle down economy has not worked. According to an OECD report, among the member nations, Israel is the member with the widest social gaps and highest number of poor. Addressing the conference, Shas MK Rabbi Haim Amsalem called poverty “Israel’s shame.”

Israeli Prize laureate, Professor Yona Rosenfeld, who chairs the Forum for the Eradication of Poverty said: “The summer protest proved that the high cost of living in Israel is harming ever larger portions of the population. The tents that are still standing are just one expression of the fact that many in Israel don’t have the basics for a life with dignity. The time has come for us, like Occupy Wall Street and other movements, to demand from the government: Take care of the ordinary citizen and not just companies that trade on the stock exchange.”

Israel must ask difficult questions, he added: “Does the government of 2012 contribute to reducing poverty or to expanding social gaps? Is our tax structure progressive or does it deepen polarization?” Only real answers to such questions will lead to policies that can alleviate poverty, he said.

Activists from throughout the country, who attended the day initiated by the Forum, wondered whether the talk this year would lead to action.

“The sole purpose of the anti-poverty lobby, composed of 20 MKs, is to pass legislation that will eradicate poverty,” said Shatil Center for Policy Change lobby expert, Shmulik David “The lobby and all the organizations involved in the day are demanding that the government formulate a program to eradicate poverty.” The lobby, headed by MKs Zvulun Orlev, Daniel Ben Simon, Mohamad Berakha and Shlomo Mola, is one of the fruits of Shatil’s labor in the anti-poverty arena.

As part of the day, Shatil’s Equality and Dignity for Women in Israel initiative brought a number of occupational counselors — government employees who guide old age home residents and hospital patients in activities — to testify as a test case for a session on employment in mid life conducted by the Committee for the Advancement of the Status of Women, chaired by MK Tzipi Hotoveli. Like many middle aged women, these counselors, most of whom have at least an academic degree and perform tasks critical to elderly patients’ wellbeing, earn an hourly minimum wage and enjoy no benefits. Unlike in other countries, where they are known as recreational counselors, in Israel their profession is unrecognized and they are seen as occupational therapy assistants. At the meeting, the Ministry of Industry and Labor committed to lowering the cost of the training for these counselors, which they pay for themselves, from NIS5,000 to about NIS1,000 and to create additional training and advancement opportunities for them.

Other impact from the day: The Knesset Labor and Welfare Committee expressed anger at the paltry budget and inadequate services provided by the Employment Service, which is responsible for professional training for the un- and under-employed, and vowed to pressure for additional funds and to find ways to solve the problems of the service.

The Knesset Finance Committee discussed the issue of a fair living wage and asked the Knesset research department for a detailed report on the circumstances of employees who earn a less than minimum wage and on the possibilities for instituting a fair living wage.

The decisions were backed by position papers written by Forum members with guidance from Shatil.

Domestic murder, unheard of in Ethiopia, has sadly made headlines once again in Israel’s Ethiopian Israeli community. The murder of Yeshi Amara, a mother of three whose family emigrated from Ethiopia five years ago, sent shockwaves through the community. The SHATIL-guided Yachdav Coalition, comprised of Ethiopian women and men, was formed to address the crisis of domestic violence in the Ethiopian community and has been battling the phenomena for several years through educational and lobbying activities.

This regent tragedy has galvanized the coalition into further action.

Recent successes of the coalition include: The creation of a special prayer against domestic violence, created though collaboration with Kessim, (spiritual leaders of the Ethiopian community); empowering young activists from within the community through trainings; and using the Amharic language media to bring the issue of domestic abuse to the community’s agenda. In response to the latest murder, Yachdav chair Moshe Shatte stated on Israeli radio that “if we act now and work together we can prevent the next murder.”

Last week the Yachdav coalition sent a letter to Harel Loker, the Director General of Prime Minister Netanyahu’s office. The letter presented an urgent action plan for the government to undertake combating domestic violence, including funding for Ethiopian social workers trained in identifying and combating spousal abuse. When the Knesset Committee for Aliya, Absorption and Diaspora Affairs convened last week to discuss the crisis, Yachdav representatives were on hand. They made sure that it was well attended by both Knesset members from various parties and by representatives of Ethiopian-Israeli NGOs. A second Knesset meeting on the topic is scheduled for later this month.

A few years ago the Yachdav coalition successfully lobbied for anthropological research on domestic violence among Israeli Ethiopians, which was subsequently funded by the Ministry of Welfare. The coalition was outraged to learn this month, based on an expose in Ha’aretz, that the Ministry had intentionally hid some of the report’s findings in order to obfuscate its own failure to invest resources on this issue. In its letter to Loker the coalition stated, “The cover-up of the report findings demonstrates a refusal by many government bodies to recognize the scope of the problem.” The coalition demanded the immediate release of the full report and an investigation of the cover-up.

The Yachdav coalition wants to make sure its message against domestic violence and in favor of Shalom Bait – family peace – makes its way into every Ethiopian home in the country. To this end, the coalition has just completed production of a CD promoting an anti-violence message, narrated in Amharic by well-known Ethiopian-Israeli actors, which will be distributed to Ethiopian households, community and absorption centers, and schools across Israel. The CD will also be syndicated on Amharic language radio stations and programs.

The Yachdav coalition will continue its life saving work with Ethiopian civil society, the media, and government offices to create change towards — and also from within — the Ethiopian community, in the hope of making Yeshi’s murder the last one.

Last week, the government approved a historic plan to provide free education from age three. Three days later, the Knesset launched the largest lobby in its history with 30 MKs working to forbid employers from hiring subcontracted workers. By mid week, the Israel Medical Association barred participation of its members in public events that exclude women.

What do these seismic changes have in common?  SHATIL’s hand.

While the protest leaders opposed the Trajtenberg report, whose most significant recommendation was for universal early childhood education, SHATIL convinced them to support this bill. Together with Jerusalem City Councilwoman Rachel Azaraia’s Yerushalmim movement, SHATIL convened a forum of organizations that pressured the government to approve the plan – which will significantly ease the financial burden on young families, enable many more women to join the workforce and help bridge social gaps. The Forum urged the government to implement the Trajtenberg report’s recommendations to find the funds for this commitment by raising taxes on the wealthiest citizens and cutting the defense budget, rather than cutting welfare and education budgets. In a letter to the government, the Forum wrote: “We praise the adoption of the Trajtenberg Committee recommendation. At the same time, we are sorry that the implementation will begin only in September of 2012 and not in January 2012, as the report recommended. This represents a partial and delayed response to the cry of the protest that brought hundreds of thousands of citizens to the streets during the summer of 2011.”

As a way of celebrating the government’s decision as well as monitoring it, SHATIL, Yerushalmim, the Forum for Free Education and others initiated an unusual and joyous event on January 17:  Parents and Children’s Day in the. Breaking through the usual norms and frameworks, dignified Knesset members sat on the floor reading stories to children, who, in between stories, chanted, “The people want social change!”

One of the causes of Israel’s unprecedented social gaps is the increasing use of subcontracted workers by employers as a way to shirk their responsibilities to their workers. Employers need not pay subcontracted workers the benefits and salary levels they are legally required to provide to salaried workers. The phenomenon is spreading exponentially — from cleaners and guards to teachers, college professors and more. One bank notified its staff that as of the next day, they would all turn into subcontracted workers. In response, SHATIL’s Center for Policy Change recruited a wide range of civil society organizations in a move to initiate the creation of the Knesset lobby that will work to change this situation. In a radio interview today (Jan 17) MK Dov Khanin said the government was the biggest culprit when it comes to using outsourced workers and violating worker’s rights. The lobby is chaired by Zevulun Orlev of the National Religious Party, Moshe Gafni of the ultra Orthodox Degel Hatorah party, Dov Khanin of Chadash and Shaul Mofaz of Kadimah. The 30 MKs in the historic lobby represent eight Knesset factions from far right to far left. Said Shay Cherpanov, Shatil lobby consultant: “SHATIL together with the National Union of Israeli Students and other organizations succeeded in recruiting a good number of MKs to demand that the government decide once and for all what kind of society we will have: a society of fairness and social solidarity, or an exploitative one?”

On the exclusion of women front, the SHATIL-led Coalition for the Inclusion of Women in the Public Sphere launched a campaign to hold the government to its democratic responsibilities and cease to fund or sponsor events and organizations that exclude women. Last week, the Puah Institute, which works to promote fertility among Orthodox women, held its 12^th annual conference, an event that attracts about 1500 people. As a result of the public pressure– including a letter to the government signed by more than 45 civil society organizations –  eight out of nine physicians invited to address the conference cancelled their appearances and the Israel Medical Association called on its members to boycott any scientific or medical event that excludes women. “This is a sensitive and complex issue,” said SHATIL’s Pluralism Project coordinator, Tammy Katsabian. “We are not anti-Haredi. We are anti-inequality.”

Against the background of a messy dirt lot, a busy main road and the looming supermarket beyond, a tattooed Ethiopian immigrant woman with her baby perched on her back in a traditionally embroidered sling, waters her bed of red corn in the middle of a thriving green garden. Draped in curls of sweet pea, the Kalisher Community Garden run by Earth’s Promise with Ethiopian immigrants in the local absorption center, is a green sanctuary in the middle of Be’er Sheva. The center stands in front of a large, empty dirt lot strewn with trash, one of many in Be’er Sheva originally earmarked to be green spaces for the city but now serving only as desolate eyesores.  In one of the city’s poorest neighbourhoods, certainly no stranger to eyesores, this community garden flourishes, serving as the ‘after’ picture to the ‘before’ still surrounding it.

Earth’s Promise, a local non-profit organization, runs a variety of environmental projects, including composting at the student dorms of Ben Gurion University and education on urban environmentalism. The Kalisher Community Garden is their flagship project, and Earth’s Promise receives some income by providing consulting services on community gardening to other groups. As a result, new gardens are starting up, often in partnership with local Ethiopian communities.

Enjoying the guidance of Shatil, and the support of the municipality and the Kalisher absorption center, Earth’s Promise has thrived. Shatil training courses and consultants have helped the organization to develop its services and maximise its potential for resource development, media outreach and organizational efficiency.

“For a small organization like us, with no office, it is really useful to have Shatil escorting us,” says Hadas Sade, Earth’s Promise Executive Director, who uses the workspace in the Shatil Be’er Sheva office designed for small organizations.

The garden model is particularly compatible with Israeli-Ethiopian communities because of many of the immigrants’ agricultural background. On arrival in Israel, they are placed in urban high rise buildings, disrupting critical community dynamics such as the support of extended families and the influential role of the elders. The children’s ability to adapt and learn Hebrew quickly places them in positions of having to translate and culturally navigate for their parents, a situation that reduces the parents’ authority, sometimes with damaging consequences. The garden provides a chance for Ethiopian-Israeli parents to use their traditional knowledge and agricultural methods to demonstrate their expertise and recover some of their lost status.

“We are here to facilitate bringing the power back to them,” Hadas emphasizes. “They do not need to be told how to do anything as the knowledge is all in their hands.”

Still, there has been a learning process. Hadas remembers ripped up beets left to rot, unwanted by the residents. Instead, they planted Ethiopian red corn and crops to make injara, the Ethiopian bread staple. Now, there is a delicate balance of bringing the residents what they want and also teaching them about new crops that thrive here.

Earth’s Promise focuses on sustainability, and they aim for this garden to be independent, with the composting coming from the absorption center itself.

“Community gardens aren’t just about putting up a fence and connecting to water,” Hadas explains. “Many gardens fail because the community is not strong enough.”

In this garden, the community feeling is palpable. New children’s sessions are being run, and since, with all their good intentions, the children will still run wild over the carefully planted corn, Hadas’ team has set up an adjacent garden for children. They play, dig and learn the science of growing plants. On this particular day, a dozen children from the absorption center shyly enter the lot and enthusiastically start digging. A teenager who often finds solace here strolls in, as well as several adults who want to check their plots.  It seems surreal that this ecological, inter-generational community activity could be flourishing in such a bleak urban setting. But it is.