On our way to the kindergarten – We need you!
In October, 2015, at the height of terror attacks, a group of people from Kibbutz Evron and the village of Mazra'a sat together at a coffee shop in Mazra'a and discussed dreams of good neighborliness.
The ideas that emanated from several joint events were well and good but the daily routine that brought everyone back to his or her own concerns highlighted the need for something ongoing and every day in order to bring about a togetherness and openness.
This was how the first idea for a joint bilingual kindergarten between Mazra'a and Evron came up – a kindergarten in which Arab and Jewish children from the two communities and environments would be raised and educated together.
Young families from both communities joined the project amid the desire to raise their children differently. In both communities the process spread to the general public.
Currently, we are about to open the kindergarten in September, 2018, at Evron.
There is already a place but it needs significant renovations and there is a an urgent need for money to fund the ongoing maintenance and also for scholarships for families in need.
One of the main front runners of the idea of the kindergarten is Sagi Shalev, who lost his brother Nisan, a helicopter pilot, during the Second Lebanon War.
In the first entry of the blog that Sagi wrote - "On the way to the kindergarten" – he ended with the following words:
"The establishment of a bilingual kindergarten is, in my opinion, a true test for all of us as human beings, as a community and as residents/citizens of the State of Israel. Do we plan to continue staying within our comfort zone and watch how the reality around us fluctuates and changes us in directions upon which we have no control, or are we prepared to rise up and take action, to leave our comfort zone and let love and courage lead our lives?
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Perhaps our children will grow with a little less fear and a little more openness in accepting the 'other' and those different from us.
We ask for your help in making this dream, that people, neighbors, dreamed – a reality.
A better future for us all begins right in the kindergarten.
In the last year and a half the Ma'yan Babustan association supported and encouraged the establishment of a new bilingual kindergarten at Evron, and currently supports this campaign to enlist further resources for the benefit of the establishment of the kindergarten and for a grant fund that will open the door to shared education also for the benefit of families in need
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"Ein Bustan" (Ma'ayan Babustan) is a Jewish-Arabic association for social change which operates in the field of bilingual education and multiculturalism according to the Waldorf (anthroposophical) principals of education.
The goal of the association is to work towards bringing people together via joint education and to be a bridge between the Jewish and Arab populations living in proximity to one another, in order to build together a society based on symbiosis and peace.
The association was established in 2005 by Jewish and Arab parents from neighboring communities in the Lower Galilee, and it provides an opportunity for children of both peoples to get to know, respect and to come in contact with one another at a young age, on a daily basis.
