When Candy and I started EduCare in 1990 we knew we wanted to impact and empower children and schools through the education of the heart. However, we never anticipated our work would reach so profoundly into the Middle East and that we would have the opportunity to bring healing to the peoples of that region. Yet, that’s exactly what we are involved in today! We are in the middle of an ACE pilot project that works with Israeli, Arab and Druze children in Haifa, Israel. It’s sponsored by the EduCare Foundation, the Institute for Individual and World Peace (IIWP), and EduCare Israel.
In August 1999, about 120 Jewish, Arab, and Druze teachers from four separate elementary and junior high schools came together for the ACE Teacher Institute: to learn how to integrate the ACE Program into their classes. For many Jewish teachers it was their first time together with so many Arabs. The tension was high to say the least. However, once each person realized their common interest — the welfare of the children — the tension began to dissipate. It even became joyful and fun.
On the third day we did a process called “Cup of Dreams” in which each teacher shared their “dream” for their students and then all of their dreams were “combined” into one big dream. In every sharing, there was the word “peace.” It was phenomenal to watch as each teacher discovered he or she wanted the same things for their kids: peace, to grow up knowing they are loved, knowing they can be successful, knowing they can make a difference in the world.
The group also participated in a process we call the Friendship Ring. It was wonderful to see this group of teachers move past each other and past their differences, sharing handshakes, hugs and even tears of joyful release and healing.
Two months later, in October, the first of a series of three-day ACE Student Workshops began. About 85 wonderful, Light-filled, enthusiastic Arab fifth graders and their teachers and counselors came together in a modern community center in Um El-Fakm, an impoverished Arab town on the outskirts of Haifa. As the three Israeli ACE facilitators-in-training and I came to the front of the room to begin the workshop, the children burst out in a song of welcome. “We are pupils of this school. Welcome! Welcome! Welcome! We are friends!” They sang loudly in English and for many that was as much English as they probably knew. It was a gracious, loving welcome, the spirit of which lasted throughout the three days.
The students did great, participating in the same ACE program we do here in the States. They involved themselves in activities of building greater self-regard, teamwork, listening and respecting others, and choosing positive attitudes. The facilitators spoke either in Hebrew or English and the translator spoke in Arabic and back to us in Hebrew or English. It actually worked very smoothly.
One of the highlights for the children was moving past the barriers of separating the girls from the boys. Several of the teambuilding activities integrated all the students and the kids commented how great it was that boys and girls could play and learn easily together.
Despite all the progress and success, toward the end of the third day we were presented with a challenge that almost ended this project for good. It seems that Aviva, the Israeli woman who is head of Educare Israel, had arranged a meeting with the Arab town mayor. When she learned he was considered by the Israeli government to be an active political extremist, she canceled the meeting. The mayor was deeply insulted. He was considering canceling the program before it was off the ground.
At mid-day on the last day of the student workshop, the principal told us that the kids would be going home right now unless we agreed to see the mayor
