This volume presents the proceedings of a national conference on “Utilizing Research to Promote Opportunities for Arab Children and Youth in Israel.”
This conference was held in 2003 under the auspices of the Municipality of Nazareth and organized by the Engelberg Center for Children and Youth of the Myers-JDC-Brookdale Institute. It offered 250 Arab and Jewish professionals and policymakers a unique opportunity to engage in a dialogue on the major trends and challenges regarding Arab children and youth in Israel today. This conference represented an important watershed in raising the awareness of the extensive unmet needs as well as the effective ways of addressing them. The conference has served as a stimulus for important policy and program initiatives.
Dr. Khaled Abu-Asbah and Miriam Cohen-Navot of the Engelberg Center for Children and Youth served as co-chairmen of the conference and co-editors of this volume. In his introductory remarks at the conference, Dr. Abu-Asbah noted: “This conference is a very important event in the effort to promote opportunities for Arab children and youth. For the first time it provides an opportunity to take a broad multi-disciplinary and multi-dimensional perspective with respect to where we are and what we need to do and what are some of the important ways in which we can bring about change. This is also an important event in the development of the Myers-JDC-Brookdale Institute’s program for Arab children.”
The work of the Engelberg Center over the past eight years, and the broad partnership established with the Arab community in Israel were reflected in many of the presentations at the conference. The conference focused on a number of key themes:
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Creating positive partnerships in policy and program development between the Arab community and national policymakers
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The shift from adapting programs developed for the Jewish community to the Arab community to developing policies and programs within the Arab community that reflect its specific needs and culture
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The Arab community as an innovator at the local level, whose innovations can also benefit other communities throughout Israeli society
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The implications for service development of the dramatic social transition in the Arab community
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The importance of developing objective criteria for resource allocation at the national level in order to assure more equitable distribution of resources
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The role of research as a catalyst for program and policy development.
The conference and this volume were supported by the Marshall Weinberg Fund for Professional Collaboration and Development. In his greetings to the conference participants, Marshall Weinberg noted: “I am proud to be involved in this conference because it reflects the deep concern of the Institute and its Board for the advancement of all members of Israeli society, non-Jewish and Jewish alike. It is important and encouraging that such a serious group of Jewish and Arab professionals comes together to address the future of Arab children in Israel for the benefit of everyone in Israeli society.”