What Makes the Arava Institute Unique
- Unlike many of the Israel/Palestinian groups we do not get our participants together for only a weekend or a few weeks. They are together for a minimum of a semester, while many for a year or two years. One of the challenges of reconciliation groups is that the long term effect is not always so strong. Because our students spend so much time together we see real long-term relationships and ongoing contact after they finish the program.
Our target is that the future Environmental Minister for Israel, The PA, and Jordan will all be graduates of the program. The personal and professional contacts they make as well as what they learn and experience help them turn ideals into tangible results and realities. Over 70% of our graduates go onto work in the environmental field. Once they have completed the program we work as much as we are able to nurture them as they move onto greater positions of influence and power. - Related we have a list serve where the alumni stay in touch and we try where we can to place them in further work and research after they complete our program. An Israeli woman from the first year, 1996, and a Jordanian man from three years ago just completed the first year of a three bio-diversity study on the Arava Valley on both the Jordanian and Israeli sides of the border.
This is part of a three year MERC (Middle East Regional Cooperation) Grant from the US Government. We have three other MERC grants with Jordan, Morocco, and the Palestinian Authority where our alumni participate as well. Another example of alumni working together: Majeed Eassa, an Israeli Arab and Mari Murahashi from Japan created a link between an Israeli Arab school and a Japanese school for work on the environment, including a visit by Israeli students to Japan. - A number of reconciliation groups meet outside of the Middle East in Europe or New England. Our program is located in the Middle East literally on the border of Israel and Jordan, and a few miles from the Egyptian border. This makes the experience that much more real and tangible. On weekends students can go and visit each other in their homes in Israel, the PA, and Jordan.
- Because we use the environment and not peace as our primary ingredient we are able to accomplish much more when it comes to the peace element. The environment becomes the metaphor, the level playing field and the glue that allows us to then deal with the more difficult political issues. In addition to the environmental classes that they take we also offer a Peace Building and Environmental Leadership Seminar.
- Students live in special dormitories built on the Kibbutz for the Program, but eat their meals in the communal dinning room of the Kibbutz and are 'adopted' by Kibbutz families. The Kibbutz, a community by intent, on the micro level provides an important model of sharing and cooperation with clear implications for the peace and the environment on the macro level.