Face-to-Face

Face-to-Face is a national program facilitating encounters between groups of Israeli Jewish and Arab high school youth through a series of workshops whose goal is a designed to create greater understanding of one another, reduce feelings of fear and hatred, and forge a preliminary basis for the formation of a joint future based on mutual respect.  The Face-to-Face program aspires to enable each young man and woman in Israel to participate in at least one face-to-face encounter in an educational, egalitarian framework during the course of their high school years.  The purpose of the encounter is to lay the initial groundwork for a joint future based on mutual respect between Jewish and Arab citizens by reducing the sense of alienation and mutual fear.

 The heart of the program is an encounter (either a two-day intensive seminar or series of one-day seminars over the course of one year) between Jewish and Arab youth from the upper grades of high school. The encounter is constructed of interactive workshops for mixed groups with joint facilitation (a Jewish facilitator and an Arab facilitator for each group). It also includes a joint cultural evening and social activities.  Prior to the encounter, the students undergo a uni-national process of clarification in the school, which includes an informative element presented by the teachers and a psychological element presented by Givat Haviva facilitators. Following the encounter, the students participate in a workshop to process the experience and continue to maintain contacts with their peers through designated internet platforms. The teachers themselves participate in a half-day preparatory program in the school and in a mini-workshop during the students encounter.

Coming of Age in Shared Public Space

Shared use of common public areas by Jews and Arabs demands the learning and acquisition of unaccustomed skills. The ability to share public space congenially requires tolerance of diversity in appearance, language, and cultural behavior. After years of segregation in the school systems, many Jews and Arabs feel uncomfortable sitting together on buses and trains, and sharing public space in malls, medical establishments, social security offices, etc. The program Coming of Age in Shared Public Space – Changing Attitudes among Junior and High School Students focuses on these issues and addresses them on the level of knowledge, on the level of contact and meeting, and on the level of skills.

Coming of Age in Shared Public Space is a one-day intensive program for Arab and Jewish high school students, in which factual knowledge is presented, followed by experiential activities and facilitated workshops designed to familiarize the students with each other and to teach them skills for sharing public space and give them an opportunity to practice using these new skills. The program's one day format is designed to make it accessible to as many schools as possible in order to reach a maximum number of youth nationwide.