On December 6th, 2012, Sadaka Reut’s youth opened Building a Culture of Peace’s activity year in the first bi-national meeting that took place at Academic College of Jaffa. Fifty Palestinian and Jewish participants of Sadaka Reut arrived from different parts of the country such as Qalanswa, Kufur Kaseem, Taybe, Jaffa, Tel Aviv, Lod, Kfar Shalem, Netanya and Kiryat Shalom.
The activity day began with the participants getting to know each other and continued with workshops on human rights, where the participants examined the concept of rights versus desires.
Eden Tatour, one of the Jaffa group participants, said, “It is my second year in Sadaka, and I feel this place is like a family to me. I waited for this activity for a long, and I am excited to get to know new people and hope to see them all in future gatherings.”
David from Kfar Shalem said “This is the first time I’m meeting Arabs. I came to this activity with a whole lot of prejudice and slowly my opinions are diminishing. I realized they’re just like us.”
During the activity, the project coordinators spoke about Building a Culture of Peace and explained the importance of bi-national activities. They also spoke about human rights and the struggle for change, which is the subject the project will deal with this year.
At the end of the activity the participants gathered to summarize their experience. The facilitators presented their words in a funny and theatrical way. The participants were given stickers and bracelets with slogans against racism and were invited to keep in touch through Facebook as they prepare for next month’s bi-national activity.
Tzvika Naim, the facilitator of Netanya’s group, wrote, “Imagine a picture – the bus comes to Dora and my kids are unsure whether to go on it or not. They don’t really understand what is about to happen. Two of them decide in the same second to give up and you can see how uncomfortable they are. My fear is growing as the general feeling is that the bi-national activity will be particularly difficult this time. Five of my kids go on the bus anyways, among them the wonderful Sapir who, in her free time, encourages her fellow group members, helping them to be more open-minded. After 10 minutes of driving we’re already playing translation word games on the bus. The Dora kids are answering in Hebrew, while Kufur Qaseem, Qalanswa and Taybe are yelling back in Arabic. It starts with “car” and “watermelon” and moves on to “soccer” and “road”. Three hours later, on the way back, it’s dark and everyone is tired. Too tired for games. The kids from Dora ask me quietly how to say “We’ll see you soon” in Arabic. The Kufur Qaseem kids smile and answer back. When they all get off the bus, I hear “Bill shupkum kariv!” and I understand just how special this evening was.”