Community Education |
NISPED-AJEEC is dedicated to offering educational programs for children of all ages that meet the needs and traditions of the Arab-Bedouin community. Our staff and volunteers work together with community educators, parents and residents in the planning and running of these programs. NISPED-AJEEC's initiatives include early childhood day-care centers - Bet El-Umm Wal-Tifil (The House of the Mother and the Child) - educational activity centers in unrecognized villages for children of all ages and special summer camps and activities.
Please read below for more information about our past and present programs.
|
|
|
Early Childhood Resource and Training Center
The Building Blocks for Tomorrow's Players - Focus on the Early Childhood Resource and Training Center
"When I approach a child, he inspires in me two sentiments; tenderness for what he is, and respect for what he may become." -- Louis Pasteur
In the Arab Bedouin community of the Negev, 25 percent of the population is under the age of four. Lack of infrastructure, resources and pervasive poverty threaten the futures of thousands of children living in both the recognized and unrecognized villages. These children start school without the advantages of other youngsters in Israel. Access to quality early childhood education which is respectful and sensitive to Arab Bedouin culture serves as preventive medicine for children who otherwise don't have exposure to the kinds of experiences that produce early learning and social skills.
As part of a comprehensive effort to afford Arab Bedouin children the building blocks for future school and life success, NISPED – AJEEC launched the Early Childhood Resource and Training Center. The Center's overall objective is to develop the human and material resources essential for the ongoing provision of high quality, culturally relevant early childhood educational programs for the Arab Bedouin community while promoting active parent and community involvement.
The Center functions on diverse levels:
Resource Development: The Center develops culturally appropriate educational materials for Arab Bedouin children, ages one to four. Early childhood educational materials in Israeli society do not reflect the language or cultural realities of Arab Bedouin children. Resource Center staff produce Arabic language books and develop games, toys and puzzles dealing with topics that the children are exposed to in their everyday lives. All Center-produced materials reflect the life style, dilemmas and real-life issues facing the Arab Bedouin educator and parent – and no less, they are rooted in the identity, culture and traditions of Arab society in general and Arab Bedouin society in particular. The Center produces all materials on-site.
Training: The Center develops training programs and conducts training courses for paraprofessional early childhood educators and ongoing in-service training and enrichment workshops for professionals and paraprofessionals. Specifically, the Center :
- conducts workshops for the women who run the Bet El Umm Watifil day care frameworks and mother and children groups. In unrecognized villages, virtually no educational frameworks existed for children younger than kindergarten age. Mothers who participated in NISPED –AJEEC's Parents as Partners Project were trained and qualified as early childhood educators and opened nine frameworks for young children and most recently, 12 mother and children's groups in new target communities. The Resource Center serves as a source of continuing education and ongoing guidance for the women.
- provides guidance to the women working in the Community Education Activity Centers. In 2006 NISPED – AJEEC with the support of the Bernard Van Leer Foundation established two Community Educational Activity Centers in Khashem Zanah and Ghaser Alser. The Activity Centers serve as community magnets for scores of local children and their mothers. A young woman, trained and employed by Resource Center staff facilitates educational play.
- facilitates the training of senior professional early childhood educators.
|
|
|
Parents as Partners
In traditional Arab Bedouin society the mother was her children’s first and foremost teacher. However, as the traditional ways of life disappear, and women are increasingly isolated from the societal mainstream, mothers are at a loss as to how to provide their children with the necessary head-start for life in modern, urban society.
Parents as Partners is a holistic, community-based early childhood intervention program designed to meet the needs of mothers and their children from birth to age 3. The program combines elements derived from the community's own cultural traditions and life style with modern early childhood theory and practice.
Parents as Partners trains women from Arab Bedouin villages as paraprofessional early childhood counselors who then work in their own communities as peer teachers. During the first stage of the program, counselors meet with groups of mothers and their children twice weekly for a three-hour long program of discussions and activities. The time is divided between separate activities for mothers and for children and joint play activities. The program for mothers covers a wide range of topics: nutrition, health promotion and hygiene, accident prevention, family relations, developmental stimulation, behavior management, and the importance of play and literacy.
This stage is followed by the establishment of playschools for children between the ages of 1 1/2 to 3: the Bet El-Umm Wal-Tifil - The House of the Mother and the Child. These playschools serve as a natural extension of the home environment providing the child with developmentally-stimulating activities and attention that individual homes and parents cannot provide. The ‘Bet El-Umm Wal-Tifil’ operates five days weekly from 8 to noon and is run by a team of two paraprofessional counselors and a mother on daily rote.
Parents as Partners was launched as a pilot project in 2002 in the 'unrecognized' village of Abu Quidar. The first two Bet El-Umm Wal-Tifil were established in the spring of 2004. In the fall of 2004, the program was extended to additional unrecognized villages, where a newly-trained cadre of local paraprofessional counselors organized 10 groups of mothers and children.
The program continues to grow; today there are centers in operation in 14 communities.
The Bet El-Umm Wal-Tifil was recently recognized by the Ministry of Industry, Trade and Labor Early Childhood Division as a unique educational framework that meets the needs of the Arab Bedouin community, and as such, now enjoys government support. As our program grows, the Bet El-Umm Wal-Tifil are becoming cornerstones of early childhood education throughout the Arab Bedouin community.
|
|
|
"Parents as Partners" Reaches New Heights in 2009
Changing the Face of Early Childhood Education – "Parents as Partners" Reaches New Heights in 2009
Our Parents as Partners Project has reached a new level with a cohort of NISPED – AJEEC trained 30 paraprofessional early childhood caregivers from six new target communities joining our team. The participants completed an 800 hour training course and passed the national childhood caregivers qualification examination. Throughout the year, the participants organized and ran twelve mothers and children's groups in their communities. This year, these groups will form the basis of 12 new mothers and children frameworks.
 During the 2008 – 2009 year, nine frameworks were implemented in six unrecognized villages. One hundred and thirty-five children and approximately 110 mothers enjoyed the benefits of this exciting program. A mother of three from the village of Abu Kaf explained how she transformed her entire household's nutritional basis. "My house used to be overflowing with candy, lollypops and chewing gum. After I learned about the importance of quality nutrition I put an end to all of this. I asked my husband to stop buying junk and instead to bring home healthy stuff. Today, my kids only get candy on special occasions". Another woman, a mother of eight children from Abu Gweeder broke down in tears saying, "I was brought up on physical punishment. My parents hit us all the time and I was convinced that this sort of behavior is not only normal but necessary in order to raise obedient children. I also used physical punishment in raising my children. After the lessons I learned in the program, I understood that hitting kids is not only ineffective but outright wrong. I am so sorry for what I have done and I don't know how to make it up to them". Today Hekme is raising her new baby boy. She has abandoned her old methods of physical punishment in lieu of the educational practices learnt in the program.
|
|
|
Research Report : The “Parents as Partners” Project
|
|
|
Educational Activity Centers in Unrecognized Villages
|
|
This innovative pilot project, initiated in April 2006, provides an enriching, stimulating, accessible and safe after-school environment for children ages 4 to 8 in two unrecognized Arab Bedouin villages, Hashem Zane and Qassar el Sar, where no such services existed.
The playgrounds are located in a readily accessible public space in the village, selected for this purpose by the communities. Each playground consists of a large fenced-in play area and a small playing field. The play areas are equipped with safe playground equipment - swings, see-saws, slides, jungle gyms, sandbox, utilizing recycled materials such as tires, cable spools, and more. Adjacent to the playgrounds are tents that provide sheltered area for indoor play and enrichment activities.
The playgrounds are open daily after school hours, on weekends and during school breaks. Responsibility for operation of the program and care and maintenance of playgrounds are in the hands of a staff of specially trained men and women employed on a part-time basis, assisted by high school students from the community who are trained as junior counselors. During the academic year (November-June) AJEEC's Bedouin Volunteer Center deploys student volunteers to provide educational enrichment, tutoring and help with homework for children in need of assistance and coaching, while parents and other members of the community will be encouraged to volunteer their services to help in running the program.
The playgrounds and educational activity centers are designed and equipped to provide a wide range of activities suitable for both girls and boys of different ages and interests, both outdoor and indoor, within an area sufficiently large to provide ample room for free and easy movement.
|
|
|
Parental Involvement in Kindergartens - A Past Project
Within the framework of Musharaka's projects - which are dedicated to the development of early childhood education and practices in the Arab-Palestinian society in Israel - we undertook this important project
Background to the Project
In the Arab Bedouin community, there has been little contact between the early childhood educational institutions and the parents of the children. This leadership training program for kindergarten teachers, a joint project developed by AJEEC, in partnership with the Ministry of Education and the Kaye Teachers' Training Seminar, works with teacher to enhance their abilities to act as change agents and to provide them with the skills to involve parents and the community as active partners in the educational process.
With the beginning of the school year in Fall 2006, Mrs. Nur Jaj Amar, AJEEC's project coordinator, met with 16 kindergarten teachers from Rahat, Laquiya, Segev Shalom, Hura and the unrecognized village of El Atrash. A number of the teachers had already begun involving parents in the kindergartens, with mothers taking turns helping out as kindergarten assistants, and fathers, helping with school and yard improvements.
In addition to work in the communities, AJEEC held four workshops in early 2007:
1. Working with a Community Orientation: How to involve parents? How do parents view the teacher and vice versa? What is the impact of parent involvement on the child? How can the kindergarten influence life in the Bedouin community?
2. Planning and Designing Parent Involvement Programs: How to involve parents in the educational process? Setting goals, anticipating difficulties and how to solve them. Planning projects: time-line, budget, who does what. How to involve parents in the planning process. How to measure success?
3. Parents and Children: Concentric circles of involvement: the parent, the child, the community. Mediated learning and parents as transmitters of knowledge and values. The effect of active parent involvement on the child.
4. Direct involvement of parents in the kindergardens: Planning and designing of projects that will directly involve parents: the importance of play; books and the library; preventing accidents in the home and health.
We also finalized preparation of the Hakiba - a project kit which includes sections on the following topics:
Bedouin Heritage
Stages of Development
Sensory Development and Stimulation
Working with Creative Materials and
Mediated Learning
|
|
|
Health Projects Contribute to Major Reductions in Infant Mortality
The Israel Ministry of Health, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev and NISPED – AJEEC work together with women's groups, the Arab-Bedouin community and local religious leaders (Imams) to confront the major issues affecting infant mortality and morbidity.
The Women and Children's Health Promotion Initiative is a collaborative project of NISPED-AJEEC, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev and Community Centers in Kseife, Rahat and Hura. The initiative addresses the tremendous gaps in health between the Bedouin and Jewish communities of the Negev including an infant mortality rate of 8.5 percent (as opposed to 4.7 percent among Jews). Nonetheless, the good news is that in recent years, as a result of such programs, infant mortality in the Arab-Bedouin community has been halved (from 16.8 in 2004).
The Community Outreach Program for the Development of Health Promotion Capacities among the Arab Bedouin of the Negev was designed and initiated by NISPED-AJEEC in 2008-9 in cooperation with the Faculty of Health Sciences at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. It is a component of a more comprehensive program for the reduction of the infant mortality rate in the Arab Bedouin population conducted by the Faculty of Health Sciences over the past three years, which has come to an end for lack of further funds. The steering committee of this program was composed of a broad coalition of representatives of the target community, department heads of the Health Sciences faculty, and representatives of the various health funds and government agencies providing health and social welfare services for the community.
In 2008-9 AJEEC trained an initial contingent of 18 health promoters from the community, who in turn organized 9 groups of women in 7 Bedouin towns and villages, each of which met for 12 sessions – a total of some 200 direct participants; in addition, some 120 community leaders participated in a workshop dealing with the problems of infant mortality and birth defects, including 40 imams who undertook to deal with the issues involved in their Friday sermons. Furthermore, instructional and training materials were prepared for use in the program and a broad scale public awareness campaign is underway in the local Arabic – language radio.
It should be noted that recognizing the importance of respecting cultural and religious realities, this is the first such project to incorporate the active participation of local Imams (Muslim religious leaders).
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
