January 2003

Young Leadership Program

Eighteen Jewish and Arab participants have begun part one of the Young Leadership Training program under the direction of Rachel Zini and Omar Agbariya. This year long program enables the teenagers to acquire skills in facilitating and leading coexistence groups. The focus is on group dynamics, personal and collective identity formation, and interactive skills. These teenagers will become assistants for OPEN HOUSE programs and will serve as spokespeople in the community to encourage coexistence activities and education. The program is funded by the Abraham Fund.

Cultural Sharing for School Age Children

As a follow up to the Summer Peace Camp, thirty Jewish and Arab children (ages 8-11) meet every other week in a program designed to provide them with skills to accept and appreciate the differences between them in an age-appropriate way. The program will be an examination and sharing of family and cultural experiences. Each participant will investigate his/her family’s history, cultural background, and customs and share them with the group that will then prepare art, music and/or audiovisual presentations to which family and friends will be invited. During some meetings the children will be able to use OPEN HOUSE’s computers to search for family information on the Internet and prepare artistic or other creative projects that present their family’s customs. At holiday times during the year, the children will investigate and share how their families currently celebrate and celebrated holidays in the past. There will be celebrations together and the childrens’ parents will be invited to participate. The topics the children will be asked to investigate include developing a family tree as far back as possible, interviewing family members who came to Israel from other countries – collecting and recording their memories of the past. These will include holiday celebrations, family customs, life cycle transitions (marriage, birth, birthdays, coming of age celebrations, death), and experiences during the wars in Israel/Palestine. We expect that this last topic will be the most sensitive and will require the children to learn to listen to different versions of history and accept their validity as subjective experiences. The children will have two outings to historical and cultural museums – The Diaspora Museum in Ramat Aviv, and the Museum of Palestinian Culture in Saknin. This program is sponsored by the Isabel and Alfred Bader Foundation. We hope to begin a similar program for children aged 12-15.

Beginning In January

Parents’ Group

A new group of Jewish and Arab parents is forming and will begin its cultural and educational activities in January.

Follow Up Programs for the Teenagers Who Traveled Overseas In the Summer

Monthly gatherings of youths who traveled abroad in Summer 2002.

One: The youngest group of travelers (12-14 year olds) will form a separate group and meet monthly in the Cultural Sharing program.

Two: The older teens will meet monthly for seminars, trips, holiday celebrations and parties.

Internet Project

A email correspondence with teenagers from a high school Rome, Italy is beginning. After several months of correspondence, 12 Jewish and Arab OPEN HOUSE teens will travel to Rome for a week to meet their peers. Another 14 teens from IPCRI will be going as well.

Recent Events

The Umbrella Project

The Abraham Fund organized a sponsored a day painting on “peace umbrellas.” 130 OPEN HOUSE children joined together with children from Beit HaGefen in Haifa for 3 afternoons of art work guided by Hilda Braun. The children worked in mixed groups and spent 6 hours designing and painting large white umbrellas. Some of the pictures can be seen on the web site.