Nemashim report for 2006-2007
Or Shai ,
Translation:
Nemashim is a Jewish- Arab commune of the “Friendship village” association in which the members
volunteer in poor areas of east
The commune is
located in the Tel-Ammal neighborhood and works in it
as well as in the Halissa, Neve-Yossef
and Neve-Paz neighborhoods. The purpose of the
commune is to bring theatre into the poor areas by guiding groups from
different ages and through productions of the commune itself that are offered
to the neighborhood locals.
The Nemashim commune is a group of theatre leaders as well as a
theatre group for itself. The theatre, in our opinion, is a tool for a
nonviolent expression for the youth in these neighborhoods, a tool for a
Jewish-Arab dialogue within each neighborhood, between the neighborhoods and
likewise a tool for community unification.
This report will
conclude the work of our last year which was the second Nemashim
commune. The group finished its work and cleared its place for the new commune
- the third in its number.
The main
productions of the commune
Throughout the
year the commune, as a theatre group, produced three big shows; “Hadi and
Hadi and
The show had much
popularity and the kids, for most of whom this was their first theatre
experience, enjoyed it very much.
More on this in
the show’s web page at:
www.mideastweb.org/nemashim/hadi-tami.htm (hebrew and arabic, but you
can reach the youtubes of the show from there)
Shatof- is
a performance of movement theatre. The show takes place in a museum in which
six statues from different periods and cultures. At night, after the guarder
leaves, the statues spring to life. The show describes
the way in which the statues discover themselves and their friends; the way
they discover what happens between them and the way they discover the existence
of the Shatof - a big red cloth that each one of the
characters claims as her own and on which a war develops. The show is from the
movement theatre genre - it has no words, has a bit of Gibberish and has
numbers in several languages. Shatof was first preformed in the Neve-Yossef centre, then preformed twice in the
international pantomimmy festival in Shfa’amr and one last forth time in the Neve-Yossef
centre again during the Neve-Yossef festival for
community theatre which took place in June.
More about the show in the show’s web page at: www.mideastweb.org/nemashim/shatof.htm (hebrew and arabic, but you can reach the youtubes
of the show from there)
Memories from the return to
Summery of plot:
Dov,
More about the show: www.mideastweb.org/nemashim/return.htm
Guiding of groups and
individual tutoring
Each of the members of the commune was involved
during the year in several community projects. The main part of out community
work was guiding theatre groups, as well as other kinds of groups and tutoring
projects.
This year the Nemashim
commune worked on the community work to a great extend
with two other projects that are active in the neighborhood:
·
“Open
apartments” – a project by the University of Haifa that gives students full
scholarship as well as a free apartment in a poor area as a return for
volunteering hours in the community.
·
“Shalman” – the culture department crew of the Neve-Yossef centre. These are volunteers for the Israeli
civil service of whom two out of the three (
“Hagesher” (:”the Bridge”) after-school child
care facility- the first commune member who
started to lead there was Amina. She led together
with
The “Kat-Gan” after-school child care facility- in
addition to their volunteering work in the “Hagesher” facility, Amina and Michael also volunteered in the Kat-Gan facility which is located in the Neve-Paz
neighborhood. In this facility were 20 kids from Ethiopian ethnic origin from
the ages of 2-3. the meeting took place once a week
from January 2007 until June 2007.
English through theatre in the “Kishon”
school- the third group which Amina
led was a group of ten kids in the ages of 8-12. The classes were a part of the
‘enriching studies’ of the elementary school “Kishon”
which is located in the Neve-Paz neighborhood. The
children were given a choice to choose between several options, and English
through theatre was one of them. Amina led this group
together with
The after-school
child care facility for Ethiopian female teenagers-
Another
project that Amina led was an after-school facility
for Ethiopian girls of the young woman’s care unit in
the welfare department. This facility is located in an empty class in the “Kishon” elementary school and to it arrive 15 girls in the
ages of 13-16 everyday in the after school hours. Amina
led there together with the commune member Or Shai
theatre classes once a week between March 2007 and June 2007.
Arab girls from Halissa
group- this is the third group which Or
led; it is a group of teenage Arab girls in the ages of 12-13 from the Halissa neighborhood. This group was created by the
community unit in the welfare department of
Arab-Jewish youth theatre in the “Ganim”
centre- Renana did not want to
limit herself to volunteering only with kids and
together with the commune member Ahmad she
established a Jewish-Arab theatre group in the youth centre “Ganim” for teenagers in junior high school.
Theatre group for boys and girls in Halissa- the commune member Khaled decided to be pioneer and to establish the first
group of the Nemashim commune for generations in Halissa. Together with
Pictures
from the community work:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/9370585@N07/sets/72157600594125413/
The life of the commune
It is hard to conclude a whole year in a few words; a year of
volunteering, of shared life, of social change and of a lot of learning and
development- both ours and of our students. One of the people who witnessed the
three main productions of the commune said at the end of the third one that “it
seems as if you’ve grown up in ten years in this last year”. There is no better
way to conclude the experiences we’ve gone through, the difficulties we’ve
faced and how we coped.
We lived for a year in a multi-cultural commune. Two
Arabs, three Jews and one German living in a small apartment between Halissa and Tel Amal, trying to make a difference. A difference within ourselves and within the community around us.
Life has not always been sweet. The fact that we are all actors has
caused a lot of drama in the commune. There were ups and downs, moments of
crisis and moments of peak, moments of laughter and moments of tears. We
learned a great deal about each other as human beings, as well as about the
different cultures in the commune.
Since our project has no sponsoring, we had to work in order to fund “luxuries”
such as water, electricity and food for the commune. Ahmad
worked as a dishwasher in the German Colony
neighborhood, Or worked in the organization “Greenpeace”, Renana
cleaned houses, Daniel did storytelling with Ortal
Cohen (one of the members from the previous commune), Amina
worked as a translator for the Kfar Re'ut-Sadaka association and Khaled was economically supported by his parents. We hope
that as the project goes on there will be enough
funding for it so that the members of the following communes will not have to
work since this hurts our community work as well as the commune’s existence. As
for now the financial situation is even worse! We need desperately money!
To conclude, we wish lots of good luck to the third commune, whose
members are settling in these days at the apartment in
An “image” movie about the commune on YOUTUBE:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-UM6ewY4inE
This is the summary of the report. For the full report in Hebrew:
www.mideastweb.org/nemashim/final_report_2007.doc
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