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Ittijah: Union of Arab based community organizations |
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Contact
Information
Telephone:
(972)
4/8507110
Fax:
(972)
4/8507241
E-mail:
ittijah@ittijah.org
Website:
www.ittijah.org
P.O. Box:
PO Box
9577 |
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Category of Organization:
Non Governmental |
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Brief
History of Organization |
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The
purpose of Ittijah’s Youth Program is to create a network of
NGOs, which will assist these associations in building programs
for Arab youth in Israel. The need for such a program is clear.
Research has demonstrated that the Israeli educational system
discriminates systematically against Arab youth (See Human
Rights Watch, “Second Class – Discrimination Against Palestinian
Arab Children in Israel’s Schools”, September 2001). In
virtually ever way, the quality of education provided to
Israel’s Palestinian citizen children is inferior to that
provided to the state’s Jewish children. |
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Mission |
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Ittijah’s
Youth Program seeks to assist these organizations not only in
obtaining funding for their youth-related projects, but also to
help them develop a unified, strategic approach to addressing
the problems faced by Arab youth in Israel. As the program has
evolved, it has developed an increasing focus on gender issues,
in particular the needs of young Palestinian women in Israel. |
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Vision |
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Civil
society organizations focusing on youth have a critical role to
play in filling the gap created by the state’s discrimination
against Arab students. Unfortunately, there are very few
non-political Arab organizations in Israel with a youth focus.
Many organizations list youth as a priority, but due to ad-hoc
funding and the numerous issues these organizations must deal
with, youth are frequently neglected. |
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Programs |
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Cyprus Conference |
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Held at
the beginning of June 2000, this conference was held in order to
increase co-ordination on youth issues between the three main
Palestinian NGO networks in the region: Ittijah, PNGO (the
Palestinian NGO network in the West Bank) and the Collective
Forum for Palestinian NGOs inside Lebanon. A subsequent
follow-up meeting was held in Cyprus at the end of June 2000. |
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Status:
Past |
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Pilot Project |
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A pilot
training program took place in June 2001, in which 33 Arab
high-school students between the ages of 16 and 17 participated.
The purpose of the training program was to develop a better
understanding of the needs of Arab youth, and to determine
whether a larger program could be successful. Evaluations
submitted by the participants demonstrated a strong demand for
this type of program. |
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Status:
Past
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Establishment of
an Executive Follow-Up Committee |
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NGOs
participating in the Youth Program created an executive
follow-up committee to ensure the success of the program. The
committee was responsible for preparing a long-term plan, to be
implemented primarily by Baladna – Association for Arab Youth.
The proposed long-term plan included seven training sessions,
with themes including Societies, Circles of Belonging,
Democracy, and the Arab-Israeli conflict. The first training
session was scheduled for December 2002; unfortunately,
intensive Israeli military attacks on the West Bank in April
2002 forced Ittijah and its member organizations to re-organize
their priorities in order to deal with this crisis. As such, the
development and implementation of the Youth Program |
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Status:
Future |
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