Project YALA:
Creating a Brighter Future Through
Education, Outreach, and Community Activism
Creating a Brighter Future Through
Education, Outreach, and Community Activism
Our Mission:
For participants to become better informed and more effective advocates in their home communities who assertively seek political change by dealing directly with political leaders, community organizations and individuals.
To forge sustainable relationships and partnerships among our three communities, so that our message can be the foundation of the brighter future we hope to make.
For participants to become better informed and more effective advocates in their home communities who assertively seek political change by dealing directly with political leaders, community organizations and individuals.
To forge sustainable relationships and partnerships among our three communities, so that our message can be the foundation of the brighter future we hope to make.
Our Commitment to Specific Levers of Change:
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DIRECT ENGAGEMENT
Conducting intercultural exchanges that will help create a vast network of allies. EDUCATION Providing community programs that challenge widely held assumptions about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. INNOVATION Using the latest techniques of successful and meaningful intergroup dialogue and mediation. |
RELATIONSHIP BUILDING
Forming connections that lay the groundwork for trust, mutual understanding, and long lasting partnerships. LEADERSHIP Serving as ambassadors to influence the levers of power in your community. ACTIVISM Engaging in strategic planning to help better inform and educate our community and impact our political leaders - all the while improving the nature of discourse in the political and grassroots communities. |
Project YALA is premised on three major understandings:
1) The dialogue surrounding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is incredibly polarized in the United States, in Israel, and among Palestinians.
2) The most serious problem among Israelis, Palestinians, and their diaspora communities is a severe lack of trust and understanding. We believe that demonizing the other side is NOT productive and that understanding is the only path toward tolerance and mutual respect.
3) It is doubtful that our governments have the necessary leadership or foresight or understanding to put aside their differences any time soon. Therefore, the answer is not to exclusively depend on change from the top down, but to seek political action today AND foster grassroots efforts of cultural understanding to impact future political change.
Given the above realities, Project YALA seeks to achieve these major obejctives:
1) To conduct an intensive travel experiences to the Middle East that will expose a significant number of aspiring community leaders to first hand accounts of the situation in Israel and Palestine AND to have our group fully engage with Israelis and Palestinians during the entire program.
2) To create a Boston-based forum where Jewish and non-Jewish Americans can begin to forge connections with locally based Israeli and Palestinian young leaders and build relationships based on mutual understanding and trust.
1) The dialogue surrounding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is incredibly polarized in the United States, in Israel, and among Palestinians.
2) The most serious problem among Israelis, Palestinians, and their diaspora communities is a severe lack of trust and understanding. We believe that demonizing the other side is NOT productive and that understanding is the only path toward tolerance and mutual respect.
3) It is doubtful that our governments have the necessary leadership or foresight or understanding to put aside their differences any time soon. Therefore, the answer is not to exclusively depend on change from the top down, but to seek political action today AND foster grassroots efforts of cultural understanding to impact future political change.
Given the above realities, Project YALA seeks to achieve these major obejctives:
1) To conduct an intensive travel experiences to the Middle East that will expose a significant number of aspiring community leaders to first hand accounts of the situation in Israel and Palestine AND to have our group fully engage with Israelis and Palestinians during the entire program.
2) To create a Boston-based forum where Jewish and non-Jewish Americans can begin to forge connections with locally based Israeli and Palestinian young leaders and build relationships based on mutual understanding and trust.
Why Israelis, Palestinians, and Americans?
It is our belief that in any final negotiation, the United States - and thus the diaspora communities - will play a large role in what eventually comes to pass. It is therefore incumbent upon AMERICANS to be better educated about the issues on both sides and to assure that our political leaders are better informed.
It is also our belief that a third party, somewhat removed from the pressure cooker that is the middle east, will be of immense benefit to any grassroots dialogue between Israeli's and Palestinians.
And without question, the diaspora communities often feel just as "trapped" by the conflict and the lack of any visible path toward peace. In may ways, much like their Israeli and Palestinian counterparts, they also either engage fully or totally disengage due to frustration or apathy. Each community needs to understand and respect each other's vested interested in acheiving a two-state solution sooner rather than later.
