Youth Leadership – Student councils project
This project is geared towards Jewish and Arab high schools. The program involves teenagers who have been democratically elected by their fellow students to represent their classes in the school student council. The participants are aged 15-17. The student councils operate at schools in social and cultural forums. We chose to work with student councils because they constitute a body of young leadership that affects the school climate in an integral way. The council has a role in creating a positive school culture that initiates and is involved in the life of the school and community.
Our goal is to reinforce this leadership so that it can lead to processes promoting an equal society, honoring the freedom of the individual, and fostering a sense of active individual commitment towards society. This is through the understanding of the need for a dialogue as a positive component of conflict management, while focusing on the conflict between Jews and Arabs.
The course of action for the program

After a work plan including goals and content has been formed, Jewish and Arab schools were chosen; we chose geographically neighboring schools that could promote projects and joint initiatives in the future. Essentially, in the scope of the plan, each council engages in the relations between Jewish and Arab communities within the State of Israel. Each council holds single, national workshops at its school, and the bi-national meetings are held alternately at the Jewish and Arab schools. Each student council has a professional guide (a Jewish guide for Jewish schools and an Arab guide for Arab schools) is appointed to assist the youth; each instructor is skilled in this area and has extensive experience in facilitating bi-national groups.
Objectives and contents
Reinforcement of the concept of the council as a leadership body with potential for influencing the school atmosphere and initiating students’ social statements and action.
Mapping of the Jewish and Arab communities in Israeli society, while forming relations amongst them. Focusing on Jewish-Arab relations in Israel.
Deepening knowledge on the issue of the Jewish-Arab conflict.
Bi-national meetings with a student council from a neighboring school of the other culture. Engagement in the commonalities and differences of each leadership group and issues related to the joint citizenship of Jewish and Arab teenagers in the State of Israel.