Education Program
- Developed a curriculum and methodology for adult education recognized by the Ministry of Education.
- Improved the educational levels of more than 3,500 adult Bedouin women (ages 20-52) since 1998, through literacy courses (in Arabic, Hebrew and basic Math). All courses included lectures on health, education, and rights as well as trips outside the village where participants live.
- Cultivated a sense of communal responsbility among more than 100 Bedouin youth, by promoting action for the social development of their community since 2012.
Economic Development Program
- Preserved the traditional Bedouin craft of weaving while providing stable employment and income for Bedouin women through the 'Lakiya Weaving Initiative'. Since it began in 1992, the project has employed more than 100 women in the production of high-quality traditional Bedouin carpets and home décor products, sold arund the world and renowed for their skilled crafting and beauty. Besides traditional products, the project has also worked with 15 prominent designers from around the world in the production of new designes and has attracted thousands of visitors to the village of Lakiya each year.
- Developed financial literacy for 40 women (and their families) from recognized and unrecognized villages since 2012, reaching the most marginalized women in the country, by giving women the tools and practical knowledge regarding family planning strategies, rights, and social entitlements.
- Improved the welfare of over 500 women and children through the Desert Gardens project. Since 2013, more than 84 gardens have been build in five different villages in the Negev, combining local traditional knowledge and state-of-the-arts technology (including water harvesting systems). The preliminary evaluation of this project confirmed that these gardens play a significant role in enhancing the nutritional and emotional well being necessary to build healthy and socially sustainable communities in the Negev.
- Since 2013, targeted courses have built the entrepreneurial skills of more than 50 emerging businesswomen who already own or are developing small businesses. The participants became skilled in building business plans, and implementing measures to help their ventures succeed.
- Increased the ability of nearly 50 women to gain profitable employment through the implementation of four skills training courses in 2014.
- Established the Women's Small Business Forum in the Negev, the first of its kind in the Bedouin sector, with 15 active members. Through the Forum, established female business entrepreneurs have boosted their profile, profitability and have developed business networks.
- Incrased the draw of Lakiya village as a tourist destination by developing tours and cultural places of interest and collaborating with local organizations promoting tourism in the region.
Rights Program
- Strengthed the voice of Bedouin women from unrecognized villages and built capacity to raise their collective voice through the completion of a ‘Community-Based Participatory Research Study’. This included interviews with 67 women on issues of safety, security, rights and services.
- Increased exposure to a feminist news outlet through 4-6 publications a year of Sidreh News, reaching 20,000 people with each edition, and regular updates to Sidreh News Online, the only Arabic feminist newspaper in Southern Israel. Currently Sidreh focuses on the online version of this news outlet.
- Direclty engaged with the US government to demand that Israel provides protection and recognition to all its citizens in wartime by collecing over 1,000 signatures from local and international supporters and delivering the petition to members of congress, senate, the US State Department and international organizations.
- Empowering women in unrecognized villages to action by implementing a series of four-part awareness-raising workshops regarding rights and recognition in four unrecognized villages, directly reaching over 60 women.