School for the peace between Jewish and Palestinians:
“Peace Teachers” and “The Association des Amis de Neve Shalom as-Salam”
organized a trip to France for the peace between Jewish and Palestinians
Arabs.
A single experience: Neve Shalom/Wahat as-Salam is a cooperative
village composed of Jewish and Palestinian Arab families from Israel. Living
together in peace and having the same rights, each family raises their
children with its own customs, believes and religion.
This experience shows the possibility to create a community where
the social, cultural and political aspect is based on the tolerance and
acceptance of the other.
A learning ground: Pre-school and school’s goal is the integration of Jewish and Palestinians Arabs and have the same number of Jewish and Palestinian Arabic teachers. Classes are composed of both Jewish and Arabic children and the lessons are given in both languages (Hebrew and Arabic). Children keep their own cultural and religious identity and learn from the cultural differences of their classmates.
School for the Peace: Since 1979, a peace school opened its doors
to people from outside the cooperative village. This allowed Jewish and
Palestinians Arabic’s to meet, communicate and understand each other.
More than 20000 adolescents and 2500 adults attended to seminars organized
by the school and among them were many pacifist from all over the world.
People managing the seminars all have a degree in Social Sciences
and attended special program study such as “how groups of people behave
in a conflictual situation”
Mr Rabah HALLABI, the director and Mikal ZAK, a coordinator tell
us about the problems they must deal in everyday life. The goal of the
seminars they organize is to share this experience with others and show
them how it is possible for Jewish and Palestinian Arabs to integrate and
live together in peace.
To better understand this community we encountered people and students
from Mirail area. This area has an important number of foreigner’s families
and its unemployment rate reaches 40%. However in there people, especially
students, are well known for interacting with each other very well especially
students from local schools.
The project is – better understand Jewish and Palestinian Arab.
open discussion about “problems”
Mr. Rabah and Mr. Mikal tell us how they manage the situation. Same
number of Jewish as Palestinian Arab met each other for three days with
the presence of a coordinator.
They also talk about many difficulties they must deal with; they
do not follow up after the 3 days of meeting. Financial difficulties to
support the 3 days of seminar (they do not get any help from the government),
they have problems to reach university students. Difficulty to met with
Palestinians from independent area.
However the existence of the community since 1972, and the creation of the school of the peace since 1979, shows the possibility for people to live together in peace in a country having trouble for 50 years. It is a success for the peace education
10th anniversary of “The children rights” of Bazacle…from 23 to 28
of November 1999.
The Kogis Indians from Colombia
“Listen to understand.” The Kogis Indians of Colombia have a lot
to teach us about this subject. We asked Eric Julien who showed us a film
about the Kogis Indians during our local meeting of the 15 and the 16 of
October, to come back for the national meeting.
The Kogis Indians have a different view about the world. What they
live is not the past but the present and their present forces us to ask
questions about our own society; keeping the world in balance is their
mission. Listening to them is important if we want the year 2000 to be
peaceful. Project Kogis; Inheritance of a big civilization pre-colombian,
the Kogis Indians have big respect for nature and are in the creation a
schools for their children. We have documents for those who desire to study
the Kogis Indian culture and desire to help them to survive. Eric
Julien film is showed in France3 in February.