Through the years, Sadaka-Reut has worked with thousands of youth and has gained a strong reputation as an organization that has expertise both in anti-racism education and bi-national-political education. We are known for being one of the few truly bi-national youth movements in Israel, and even more so as a real bi-national community that develops and nurtures activists that possess a consensus of a joint society.
The uniqueness of Sadaka Reut is that our model is based on three decades of pedagogical experience, but is also a learning model that incorporates new knowledge in the field of peace education and lessons learned from our hands on grass roots work. Therefore, the organization is constantly developing, learning and adapting itself to the changes in the socio-political reality around us.
Our educational work is based on three main foundations:
- Uni-national and Bi-national Model: This model is based on the understanding that in order to promote a shared society both structures are important. The uni-national setting provides the safe, open space where participants can discuss issues unique to their identity group. The bi-national setting provides a framework for the groups to meet the other, getting to know the other’s culture, opinions and reality, building youths’ belief in partnership and motivating them to utilize bi-national partnership as a social change tool.
- Critical Education: In order to empower youth to become responsible social agents who understand and are a passionate about the society they live in, Sadaka-Reut acknowledges the educational pedagogy of Paul Freire; that education is a tool to change society. With this in mind, we seek to instill in youth the knowledge and the tools for examining their society critically, challenging rigid conflict narratives and injustices and thinking of alternative political and social structures in order to build a more just and equal world around them.
- From Personal Transformation to Activism: Experience in the field is the best way to learn and really internalize the change in attitudes and opinions the youth go through over the course of their work with Sadaka-Reut. Thus, the actual production of social and political campaigns plays a vital role in all of Sadaka-Reut’s educational initiatives, instilling youth with confidence in their ability to be change-makers in society. Youth are trained to connect the “personal” individual context and the “structural” social and political issues endemic to Israeli society. Facilitators encourage youth to act locally to improve their community, yet to understand and connect these problems to the larger political picture, thereby combining the social and political in a strong, meaningful way.