Building Bridges in Israel
October 9, 2004
Home Group Leaders Host Follow-up Seminar
The group held a seminar over four days at Givat Haviva, a campus located near Tel Aviv, which hosts many co-existence programs. The seminar was coordinated, planned and implemented by the Israeli and Palestinian Home Group Leaders.
The weekend consisted of many group activities. They started the weekend creating masks of themselves and decorating them to demonstrate their feelings since returning from the program. The outside of the mask was decorated to show how the students thought their communities saw them upon their return. The inside of the mask reflected how they saw themselves after returning home. The group also viewed a new film called Arna's children (not yet out in the US) that chronicles the events of a group of Palestinian children in a theatre group in the West Bank who grew up during the first Intifada. The filmmaker was the son born of a Jewish mother (Arna) and a Palestinian father. His mother ran the theatre group. The group held a discussion about freedom and identity after the film.
In addition, the participants took part in several dialogues concerning the wall going up along the border and religion. They also played interactive games to help with team building. Of course there was some personal time to “catch up” with each other face to face.
The group thoroughly enjoyed the seminar experience. Some girls, who spoke very little in the program this summer, started to talk and express themselves for the first time. Most importantly, the girls had fun seeing each other again, and it was a good start for the follow-up program for the year. The participants continue to email each other and plan to meet monthly with the hope of having another seminar in the Spring.
Building Bridges in Israel Archive
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