Stand Up for Your Rights

It happened that I started working at the educational center in one of the elementary schools in Jerusalem, which is partially funded by an organization called Mahapach-Taghir מהפך-תע'ייר مهباخ-تغيير. The organization itself is feminist, with eight communities located both in Jewish and Arab sectors, and involved in children’ education. Once a year, they organize a seminar where people who have been working there for several years and changed something share their experience with people who are interested in education. These can be parents of children from those communities, employees or just people who need help or advice. This year I took part in a seminar where I learned a lot and met amazing people.

On the one side, you might think that I live in a democratic country and it is all nonsense because everyone has the same rights. I can drive a car if I want to, study, work, and marry someone I want; however, as it turned out, that is not entirely true. For example, one elderly woman says that she got a driver's license (so what? You might think), but in Israel, it was not always possible for women to drive a car, she says. Not everyone has the opportunity to get a higher education or even some kind of profession, especially if it is a woman from a religious family who got married early, and by the age of 25-30 has five or more kids. But one community could help. As a result of their efforts, the state allocated funds to implement the program for such cases and this year the first women will receive their higher education in the Open University.

Of course, it is not always possible to achieve everything we want, for instance, we met a woman who has been trying to open a regular school with parents and other interested people for several years, where kids from south Tel Aviv could get a Baghrut. The things are progressing at a slow pace but  hopefully in the next few years, children from this neighborhood  will have a choice and they will go to study not only in a vocational school but also in a school after which they would be able to study in a University or other institutions of higher education.

In conclusion, it can be said that living in a democratic country does not always mean enjoying all rights freely. Very often we have to protect our rights and the rights of our children.