This project addresses the exclusion of Bedouin women from decision-making positions - specifically in local councils in Israel's Negev Desert. To date, only one Bedouin woman, Mona al-Habnen, has ever served on a local council in the region. Through a partnership involving Israeli Palestinian & Jewish politicians, locally & nationally, we will provide Bedouin women with the training they need for formal political participation. We directly seek to train women to run in the 2018 elections.
Despite significant improvement in Bedouin women's educational status, they & their children are statistically the poorest Israeli citizens. Bedouin women, living in a conservative community, are consistently excluded from decision-making bodies, leaving their needs & interests unrepresented in local government. This means there can be no transformation of attitudes towards Bedouin women's roles in public life. Many Bedouin women possess political vision, but lack the training to participate.
The October 2018 local municipality elections will be the first opportunity to utilise the Knesset's 2014 legislation which promised a 15% funding increase for lists with at least 33% women elected. Through leadership seminars, the project will create a cadre of Bedouin women for candidacy in the 2018 elections (50 Bedouin women in two cohorts). Each participant will hold at least 2 events with men, women, & first-time-voter school pupils, to gain acceptance as formal leaders and politicians.
50 Bedouin women with tools to becomes transformative local leaders & able to participate in local elections and political decision-making bodies, and represent Bedouin women's needs. Bedouin society as a whole will be more accepting of the inclusion of women in political bodies. The project brings together, and extends, the work of the Adam Institute, which has been successfully training Palestinian & Israeli women in political activism, with Amerat of the Desert, a Bedouin women's organisation
