Support Palestinian& Jewish Youth Leaders in Jaffa

Along with Sadaka-Reut's other programs, Community in Action participants concluded their activity year in June. They chose to celebrate the end of their journey together with a binational, bilingual public Spoken Word event that was held under the theme of social and political struggles. In the event, local artists were invited to present written pieces related to personal or collective experiences of oppression and protest. Topics ranged from different forms of systemic discrimination to civil non-violent protest.

This initiative grew out of the experience of one of the Palestinian group participants, who is also a member of a spoken word poetry group outside the program. Following the recent Gaza protests, she wrote and planned to perform a piece that included a line dealing directly with this subject, but the spoken word group's coordinator refused to allow it and demanded that she remove that line from the piece. When she refused, she was prevented from getting on stage and performing at their event. Once this participant told some of the others in the Sadaka-Reut group about what happened, they came up with the idea of holding this event in solidarity, to highlight this form of art as space to create social and political change.

Throughout the year, our participants volunteered with students at schools in Jaffa. During the last period of the activity year, they also summarized their experiences. The following are some feedbacks we received from the participants:

"We worked a lot this year on History and I think they began to see the material more critically and to understand that it is sometimes presented in a tendentious way"

"I witnessed my students gain self-confidence. Every meeting I would ask them to tell me about their week. They would tell me and I would show an interest and ask questions and it made them feel that someone cared about what they were going through"

"Everything is connected. The critical perspective I have developed throughout the year passed on to my students without me even intending to. My understanding of power dynamics and my place as a Jewish volunteer in an Arab school comes from our learning days and influences the way I tutor and treat the students"

We wish our recent program graduates the best for the future, and thank you all again for supporting this program and our the Sadaka-Reut vision!