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Three years ago I began working in Zionism 2000’s Young Leadership program. During the first year, I worked with youth in Shderot and Dimona. The job helped me fund my undergraduate studies in Biology.
The encounter with Zionism 2000, the social ideas behind it, and the impact of working with young people, brought about a substantial change in my life. A year later, as I completed my studies, I realized that I found more meaning and satisfaction in this work than in my previous plans to work in ecological research. I devoted the following year to continuing to operate the project and working with groups in the South. At the same time, our team in the office began to discuss the need to change the nature of the operation in order to make it more efficient and get our message out to a wider audience.
That’s how the “Citizens Build a Community” project began to take shape. The goal of the project was to work within the community and support individuals and groups, to create an involved and active communal life born of a feeling of belonging and responsibility for the members of their communities.
The question that most concerned us was, how was this to be done?
You could say that the project has two main guidelines. One is achieving the overall goals that we set for ourselves in the community. Therefore, our activities cover a wide range of areas. These include the operation of projects in formal and informal educational frameworks, in which the emphasis is on educating youth in the values of Zionism 2000 - activism and responsibility. We also work with young people and adults in volunteer organizations, to help them use these values to truly become involved in the life of the community.
The second guideline is partnership. In this area, most of the effort focuses on pooling resources, establishing partnerships and creating true cooperation between the different organizations in the community. The basis for this effort is the recognition that such cooperation has a synergetic influence on the processes, and creates a sum whose value is greater than its parts.
We began applying this program in Shderot four months ago.
The field work is even more fascinating than the planning procedure and creative process that we experienced over the past year. It presents many challenges, questions, and yes, satisfaction as well. The main challenge at this point is to decide on the type of activity within the frameworks and implement it within the daily life of the community.
Uri Pinto
Project Coordinator - Shderot
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