What we need is to be normal

 I spent a few fascinating hours yesterday in Lod.

Lod is unique, because it has a 6000-year history. It’s one of the oldest cities in the world. There are layers and layers of history and depth when you walk through its streets and sights.

And yet …

The city is filled with negative forces – drugs, crime, neglect, weapons, prostitution. The army’s Border Patrol (not the police) has been called in to fight gang warfare, and until recently the city didn't even have an elected mayor. It’s usually seen as the drug- and crime-capital of Israel. It’s a dangerous and unpleasant place, in some areas.

So young people leave as soon as they can. And you have a negative spiral, with the weak and vulnerable pulling the socioeconomics even further down. One-third of the population of Lod is treated by welfare authorities.

There’s no cinema (in a city of 75,000 people).

There’s no cultural life.

There's only one café (just opened last month; it’s not very good. The food is awful and the service is worse).

I was walking with some friends and colleagues around the city and we saw a group of Polish tourists come visit the Church and Mosque of St. George. “They come to see the holy site, maybe buy some holy water, then they get back on the bus,” said my colleague Lior, Director of our new Center for Young Adults. “There’s nothing else for them to do here. Living here is a sacrifice. What we need is to be normal: tourism, trade, personal security.”

Lior and his team were interviewing new candidates two weeks ago for the new Center for Young Adults. One of the candidates, a young and promising woman with a good resume, called from the parking lot. She refused to come in to the interview because she was too afraid to leave her car and come across the lot. 

That’s the challenge we’re facing there.

A Chance for Success in Afula

The Afula Center for Young Adults is an incredible source of energy and inspiration. 

Avi, the Director of the Center, says that long-time residents used to joke that you shouldn’t bother changing gears when driving in Afula because by the time you shifted gear … you’d already have left the town (it was that small). His father remembers Afula having only two roads.

But the city is now 45,000 strong; it doubled in the 1990s with aliyah from the former Soviet Union and Ethiopia. There are new neighborhoods now, and young couples.

But there are significant gaps within the city.

One-third of the population is new immigrants, of whom 10% (4,000) are Ethiopian-olim.
Afula is unique because it actively wanted to absorb Ethiopians into the city, unlike some other places.
There are stories of the leaders of Afula going twenty years ago to lobby and recruit in absorption centers.

One of the fascinating new programs that the Center is running is a cooperation with the Emek Yizrael College, for Ethiopian-Israeli women nursing students. I sat at the Center with two inspiring young women, Vered and Almaz, who are in the course.

What strikes you (ok, me, but I’m assuming I'm not the only one) about the impact of this program is that the people that benefit from it aren't just the students themselves. The program “creates a lot of positive feedback in the community,” says Vered. She and Almaz and the other 15 participants have become role models for others in the Ethiopian-Israeli community in Afula.

They get special assistance in English and chemistry, coaching and supplemental guidance and mentoring and loans to help with unique challenges. The name of the program is really apt – it’s a “chance for success.” Not just to promote academic studies in the Ethiopian-Israeli population, but also to prevent dropouts. There’s a huge problem of dropping-out among students who aren't used to studying, how to manage time, study for exams, how to sign up for things, how to succeed in daily student life.

Getting adapted to a framework, learning English, absorbing self-discipline, it’s even harder for young mothers, for women who come from a more traditional society.

Almaz made aliyah at an early age, and explained that “even though my parents understood how important education is, I always knew that I’d be the one to lift myself up. If I left it to them, I’d be stuck there. They have so much desire for me to succeed, but they are limited [in how they can help] because of their education and background. The Center for Young Adults is where I got an amazing guide and a path. I didn't know how to do it, how to ask, how to get advice. I wasn't in the place that I'm in today.”

What's amazing about this program is that the recipients have to give back while they're in the program. Almaz and Vered have to volunteer in the community 120 hours a year for the two years of their course. 

They volunteer in an absorption center, helping newer immigrants. 

They help them study, to understand their options. 

There’s a circle here. They are role models for those who come after them. 

Choosing the North means limiting your possibilities

I was privileged to meet several inspiring young leaders of the Regional Youth Parliament in Nahariya the other week. 

What I learned from them was astonishing. 

Most of all, I walked away from the meeting feeling that I was looking at the future of the State of Israel, and that future was extremely impressive and remarkably talented.

Sigal, JDC’s coordinator for Social Intervention and Centers for Young Adults, had convened a small group to discuss the issues that young people face in the North.

When you have a situation, for example, in which there's no one in the Knesset representing the Upper Galilee, you see the immediate effects.

You get bad policy and you get government neglect.

Including Haifa and the Galilee there are only 5 (out of 120) Members of the Knesset – and only one Government minister lives north of the Sharon (central area)! What happens, for example, when a badly-needed government grant for first-time home buyers in the North gets cancelled? “It’s a tree that falls in the forest and no one hears it,” they said.

The Youth Parliament is an attempt to make things heard, to help develop young leadership – not so much through demonstrations and noise, but rather through cooperation and advocacy. 

Volunteers like Simone and Einat are part of a round-table of opinions and talent that come together to discuss the four key issues that young people are facing: employment, housing, transportation and (maybe most importantly) “the system” – how to work together, cooperate, share information. And hopefully, down the road, to figure out ways of taking action for the benefit of the region and all its inhabitants.

There’s a huge learning process at work here, which is why the process itself is perhaps even more important than whatever the end-result(s) will be. The North has traditionally been seen as somewhat more apathetic. You trade off some rights for the famous quality of air and quality of living … but more on that in a moment.

The apathy comes together with a high level of cynicism about politics and politicians. 

But all the time people are leaving and there’s a spiral of despair and lack of motivation. You get low wages, there isn’t enough housing, there aren’t enough people pushing for change … so more houses won't get built, there won't be good wages, so people won't come North, and so on.

Netali, an impressive and articulate journalist who’s also working in the program, put it best: “choosing the North, as a young person, means limiting your possibilities. You have to limit to what there is, not what you want.”

Laila, the JDC Social Intervention Coordinator for Peki’in and the Druze sector, pointed out that the North is very passive, and has been so for a long time now. Even though there’s been some change in the past few years, we need people to get up and speak. In the Druze sector this is even more of a challenge - the gaps are widening there, there’s significant alienation and disconnect from the rest of society. Employers won't hire you, even Druze men who served in the army find it difficult to get good jobs. Laila is at the forefront of ways we think about how to meet this challenge.

Why is the North so weak, asked Sigal? Because, as one Knesset Member told us, we don’t speak with one voice. We don’t even know how to articulate the voice. That’s why we need the Youth Parliament here. And – even worse – there's no pressure on the media to cover the North when something does get articulated. What does the national media think about, when it covers the North? Netali was pretty clear: security incidents, major crimes, and the bizarre ‘and-finally’ stories of the guy who grew the biggest pumpkin and the girl who rescued a dog from danger.

It’s the voice that’s needed. And these amazing women are incredible talented voices for the North. They’re needed because without them, and the Youth Parliament, we won't succeed in creating a better Israel.

They're needed because they have a compelling and critical vision.

And they’re needed because … notwithstanding the myth of the quality of living in the North, as Netali told me, life expectancy in the North is actually much shorter! 

When you don’t advocate, and lobby, and organize, you get less social and medical services. 

And when you don’t have those, you die earlier.

This isn’t just a social issue. It’s a national security issue. But most of all, it’s a moral issue.

This is the first generation

This is a period of massive change and turmoil in Bedouin Israeli society. So many are moving from traditional to modern life.

It’s not an easy transition. There are gaps between age-groups; there are massive cultural and tribal obstacles. Bedouin youth today is very different from their parents, with vastly different exposures to other cultures.

The question in Bedouin society has become, who is the ‘socialization agent,’ on what values do they raise their children.

One of the most fascinating visits I've ever had to an Arab-Israeli program was to Hesegim (‘achievements’) in the Bedouin town of Rahat. It’s a program that provides higher education counseling to young adults in the periphery (geographically or socially speaking).

When you live in the periphery, your access to higher education is going to be very difficult.  And that means your chances at getting a good job are limited too.

So we have Hesegim, which works in 44 locations (hopefully expanding to more) through government and local partnerships.  In each location a single dedicated Higher Education Counselor in the JDC Young Adult Center recruits and counsels young adults to enter higher education, helps them choose a career path, prepare for higher education and secure scholarships and financing to make it possible. 

What I find interesting is that the work impacts not only the young adults themselves, the ones that receive help. It also raises awareness to higher education among their peers, families and younger brothers and sisters. For example, it makes a college degree seem more attainable.

Each year the higher education coordinators from Hesegim reach out to some 20,000 young adults who either weren't planning or weren't preparing for higher education.

So I walked around Rahat … a city with 55,000 residents. 60% are aged under eighteen!

20% of the boys of Rahat go to university; almost 70% of them drop out!

There are 11 tribes and 60 chamulot (extended tribal families) but people have different feelings of belonging. Residents I spoke to said that there are different layers of identity, but very little sense of belonging to the city.

Hesegim, to achieve higher education in Arab society, began with the geographic periphery and then understood that peripheries were also social and demographic. So the coordinator works in various levels: with individuals to provide escort/support, within the community to raise awareness about higher education, and to connect to academic institutions, making sure that expectations are coordinated.

I sat with three volunteers in the program, who explained that the three main obstacles to Bedouin youth are the psychometric exam, financial resources and English. The young people here feel they fall on these issues; many therefore go to Jordan, the West Bank or the US and have a better chance of success there. There are 220 Rahat students studying in Hebron, for example. If you come from a wealthier family, you have means and that makes it easier to make choices.

Nidal, the coordinator, told me that Hesegim has been a success story; but the economic obstacles are still critical. We've been very successful in helping people find and obtain stipends and grants. Sometimes they need a small push from us, a letter, a phone call. Guidance is critical.

Nidal spends his day going into the schools to give guidance and counseling. He identifies and helps with finding loans – there aren't enough resources for these students. If you didn't do the army or national service it’s very difficult to get grants or stipends. He works to prepare students for psychometric courses and English courses. And he’s simultaneously trying to encourage deeper leadership and volunteerism in the community.

“Our society is undergoing a complex process,” he says. “Because this is the first [Bedouin] generation in higher education, and the effect will last for generations.”

Center for Young Adults Be'ersheva

JDC's Centers for Young Adults offer immigrant and disadvantaged young adults the skills and information on which to build productive adult lives.  Services include counseling regarding higher education and vocational training; employment readiness; and life skills, such as financial literacy. Centers help participants make decisions in critical areas spanning army, family, education and employment, easing the youth to adulthood transition and preventing chronic unemployment and poverty later in life.  Community-building and leadership opportunities allow young adults to give back.

Location: Startup Center, 16 Hashalom St. Beer Sheva

Contact Person: Yiffat Hillel, CYA southern coordinator,

Amitzur, Yohann, Director of Parliament

There were 8 CYAs in the South. In the last year we opened three new ones: Eilat, Rahat and Mitzpe Ramon.

Eilat: 50% of the population is young (same as Rahat), and it has the highest percentage of single-parent women in the country, low salaries. 65% earn minimum wage. Eilat receives half a million young people every year, mostly for the hotel/tourism industry. There’s real need to open a Center there. It’s located at the High-Max between the two halves of the city. There’s a lot of motivation to work, the team is very positive, the Eilat mayor is very supportive and there’s huge potential. There was a concept to open a Center in Akaba, maybe to go international.

The Negev suffers from negative migration, a lot of quality young people are leaving.

It takes on average 6-7 years for a Beduin to finish a BA. Lots of dropouts. Lots of obstacles.

The guiding logic is local because that’s the emphasis of the municipalities. But we’re also developing a regional perspective, for education and employment. Regional employment is critical because it also serves the Centers. The Directors work also intuitively because they know what’s important, they create cooperation opportunities.

Examples:

Industrial zones are regional, not local.

The IDF training bases are moving South; the Southern mayors can't deal with this challenge on their own: absorbing families, finding employment for spouses, creating social/communal agendas.

The cities are small, no bigger than 20,000 each in the South. It’s not the mass numbers in the Center even if the geographic size is bigger.

There’s some great culture even though people don’t really think about culture in the South – there’s a great theater group in Dimona, but someone from Beersheva won't go to Dimona for the theater. They’ll go to Tel Aviv. You need to create a feeling of belonging. Only Dimonaim go to the Dimona theater.

The training bases (Ba’hdim) will have fully moved South by 2018. There is a GOI decision to set up 10 new towns in the South. It’s not clear who will benefit or suffer from this. There's no planning. The CYAs are therefore critical in this discussion and the Parliaments are the focus. The Arad Parliament invited the 10-Town plan to a discussion, and other community leaders participated. It empowered the youth, and gave them positive community activist roles.

How do you solve employment problems:

on an individual level – training, courses, referrals

interaction with the local authority, bringing companies and employers

both the above with additional value, creating a venue for synergy

CYA is grappling with the employment issue:

There's a municipal employment forum in Beersheva, trying to find solutions. There's a supply of jobs but not enough demand because lots of those who finish university don’t even look for a job, they just assume there aren’t any.

Entrepeneurship

Emphasize the community aspect and not just the employment. Social engagement on a deep and meaningful level will help you find a job better when you live here and have roots.

Cooperating with the municipality and employers on placement. There's actually a good supply of jobs but a poor image, as if it’s harder than reality. Be’ersheva isn’t seen by most people as a place in which you can succeed. It’s starting to change but very slowly. The university here is a bubble, so when you finish studying you won't have been very involved in the city life. If during your studies you lived in the good neighborhoods (Chet, Tet) you’re much more likely to stay. But if you lived in Gimel or Daled you won't. In the good neighborhoods, you’ll see good infrastructure, education, community. According to the research, only one in ten of students who come to Be’ersheva to study will even contemplate staying. Of them, 80% are already from the Negev.

We meet with the Parliament taskforce discussing the new proposed civilian airport at Nevatim. They had a public meeting with 200 participants, put forward an agenda. The top concern here is jobs; the claim is that a regional airport will create 10,000 jobs. We turned to the mayors, created a lobbying focus, we did a campaign “let the Negev take off.” The emphasis was to put employment at the focus of the discussion on the airport. We don’t have any political strength or experience but we have an opportunity to talk from the heart and the head, people listen. We have tools in the Parliament. Creating an infrastructure, speaking with the mayors, employers, Knesset and GOI representatives. 

There's nowhere else where we can do this. [You can see the enthusiasm, the self-respect, the positive image]