‘Shagi’ Initiative - ‘Shevet Achim Gam Yachad’
‘Shagi’ is an unique social project which its purpose is to heal the wounds that divide and separate the diverse groups that form the society of Israel. It does so by creating an open-minded discourse on the main issues that inflict this divide between sectors of the society. Sectors that maintain tremendous amounts of stigmas, prejudice and even sometimes hate towards one another.
Project ‘Shagi’ is operating two distinct branches
High School Students and University Students - Language as a Key to Communication
‘Shagi’ is operating an annual program for mutual language tutoring, where in the first part of the weekly activity the college students assist Arab-Israeli high school students with spoken Hebrew, and in the second part the high school students teach the college students spoken Arabic.
Simultaneously, in several schools in the country, Arab college students join classrooms of Jewish high school students that chose Arabic as their major, and assist them with their spoken Arabic. Additionally, we initiate throughout the year dialog-meetings between the Arab and Jewish college students, in order to create an integrated student society.
Dialog Groups between Secular and Ultra-Orthodox Jews
Cooperating with ‘Plugta’ Initiative, we initiate several dialog programs between secular or Religious-Zionist students and young Ultra-Orthodox Jews (Gender-integrated). The discourse in those programs deal with the most sensitive and critique issues of the Israeli society – not limited to but include – State-Religion relations, Judaism and Democracy.
The guidance of those groups are representative of their members – both secular and orthodox facilitators responsible for leading and shaping the discourse. The program also integrate lectures, team building activities and tours to the syllabus.
At the end of the year, the participants throw a ‘Families Event’, in which they invite their relatives and friends to witness the program and to participate in a discourse with the other relatives, moderated by the program’s students.
