About The Project
The project was founded in 2014 by a group of Katif Yisraeli alumni who were students at the Ben Gurion University of the Negev. After studying the issues facing Bedouin society in Israel, with a focus on higher education, through the framework of Katif Yisraeli, the group decided to launch the Ma’ayan BaMidbar project. The group realized that although Jewish and Arab students learn side by side in academic institutions throughout the country, the two groups never interact or develop any interpersonal relationships. In addition, Arab students often wrestle with language and cultural gaps that hinder their path to success and as a result a higher than average percentage of Arab students drop out of their academic studies. Ma’ayan Bamidbar was founded to provide an answer to both these issues.
The project has been operating with great success for the past three years in the southern part of the country – in the Ben Gurion University of the Negev, Sapir College, Sami Shamoon College, and other institutions. The program is a proven success, significantly improving the Arab participants’ grades and decreasing the percentage of drop outs as well as enabling the creation of meaningful personal relationships and lowering negative stereotypes.
The program has recently expanded to Jerusalem, with plans to expand to additional regions across the country.
Ma'ayan Bamidbar
The Ma’ayan Bamidbar (Wellspring in the Desert) project is a mutual academic tutoring program between Jewish and Arab students that takes place throughout the academic year. The goals of the program are to serve as a bridge between students from each of the sectors, while providing Arab students with the additional academic support they need to succeed and expanding the Jewish students’ understanding of the language and culture of the Arab community.
How It Works:
The program brings together pairs of students – one Jewish and one Arab – who learn together 3-4 hours a week throughout the academic year. In the first two-thirds of the meeting the Jewish student tutors the Arab student in subjects such as Hebrew, English, math, sciences and so on. In the final third of the meeting the Arab student tutors the Jewish student in spoken Arabic and facets of Arab culture.
In addition to the ongoing private weekly
meetings, there are also several occasions
during the course of the year when all the
program participants get together and
explore social and academic issues together.
As a result of this unique methodology, the
program provides not only much needed
academic reinforcement to the Arab students,
but also enables the development of open and equitable relationships between the sectors and leads to the breaking down of barriers and negative stereotypes that separate between them.
