By Keren Or Grinberg, Nahariya News
An amazing story of productive cooperation between Jewish and Arab students from the Galilee has been enabled by a new educational project, which carries the symbolic name "Peace on Earth," which was launched last June under the leadership of Partnership 2000 volunteers.
Through it, its organizers hope to strengthen cooperation between Jews and Arabs in the Western Galilee communities and to strengthen ties with communities in the United States and Europe through the ideal of looking after the planet, which we all share.
Director of the Nitzan branch in Nahariya, Yona Fleischer, who is also an active Partnership 2000 volunteer, thought of the idea for the project together with industrial designer, Meirav Fleisher and Yifat Eisner, a homeroom teacher from Regba School. Mickey Shmeltzer, CEO of the Shavei Zion Plastics factory (SZP) a factory that advocates environmental conservation and supports this cause by recycling plastic, also helped to ensure the project's success. The factory adopted two elementary schools, one Arab, one Jewish, from the Mateh Asher regional council, which are near the factory, and are attended by employees' children. Naturally, there is a human connection and a mutual desire for this type of project.
Factory engineer and head of development, David Fleisher, and the factory production manager, Adnan Aslan, visited selected classes in the Sheikh Danon and Regba elementary schools, to give a lesson on recycling plastic, explain the factory's production processes, and talk about the approach of a modern industry that cares about the environment. A multi-cultural staff group from the factory they represent also went. After learning about the industrial environment, the children went to visit to the factory where they took part in a novel creative activity together.
In the Shavei Zion Plastics factory, the Arab and Jewish children went to a special workshop that showed them how to assemble a product designed by Meirav Fleisher and developed by David Fleisher and Adnan Aslan. The item was made exclusively from the raw materials recycled at the plant. During the workshop the children put together an origami mobile from sheets of PET cut into a mold with the word "PEACE" in Arabic, Hebrew, and English glued onto it.
Yona Fleischer: "The aim of the PEACE ON EARTH" project is to encourage the children around the world to care for the planet together, but also to be shown a slice of real life in the Western Galilee - in which Jews and Arabs live and work together. The joint creative activity strengthens ideals like equality, peace, technology, and science while bringing members of the community involved in the Galilee, together. We believe that also the United States and Europe there is the value of peaceful coexistence, social pluralism, living in harmony, and cooperating on common goals, without a loss of identity. The whole project was enabled by the high quality volunteers who gave their time and energy to the project, and is thanks to the incredible Israeli spirit.
Partnership 2000 helped finance the project and provide the link between the schools. The Mateh Asher council head, Yehuda Shavit, helped with the transportation and warmly endorsed the initiative. To help the overseas communities adopt the program, a special activities kit was developed so that elementary school teachers abroad can work with their students in science classes, without needing to visit a similar factory. The end results will be photographed and sent to Israel.
Fleischer concluded: "The contact between children from the Sheikh Danon and Regba elementary schools was extremely moving. Having children in other places in the world do the same activity and help take care of the environment is a small sign of the beginning of a human bridge, along with the values of caring for other people and the environment. Despite the many difficulties we face and the tough Middle East reality, we can teach children, both Jewish and Arab, that we are all human beings, and that we can create beautiful things here together, through cooperation that can bring people together and lead to peaceful coexistence.
