HAPPY NEW YEAR

AND WISHES OF HEALTH

The COVID-19 pandemic has profoundly affected all our lives, expanding inequality  all over the world and especially in remote and disadvantaged areas. In the Arab-Bedouin villages of the Naqab unemployment went up  and children’s education, which in fact was shut down, caused unrecoverable damage and a loss of the school year due to lack of internet facilities in the villages. Sadly, we have witnessed the government’s eviction policy and home demolitions continue even during the pandemic. The government’s long years of neglect has made the Bedouin community in this time of crisis as the most disadvantaged community in Israel. Having said that, the solidarity and commitment we’ve seen across countries, communities and mainly within the Naqab residents, has given us plenty of reasons to move into 2021 with strength, hope and determination.

As one of the lessons of the pandemic, NCF initiated a new project of digital literacy providing accessibility to information about rights that will enable Bedouin women from unrecognized villages to learn and access internet services through a community computer and a volunteer instructor in each village.

The project offers the option of online extraction of rights.   We will provide in 6-8 Bedouin villages basic equipment and basic skills related to Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs).  We will promote access to governmental services, employment  opportunities for  Bedouin women and access to other important information.

2020 brought a decrease  in  Bedouin women’s employment in the Naqab. This issue was one of the main topics for which  we lobbied in the  Parliament and on the local level. We met with MK Aaida Toma Suliman and with Mr. Yariv Man, in charge for the five years plan for the economic and social improvement of the Bedouin population in the Naqab. We emphasized our reservations as to the under performance of the five years plan.

During the yearly Negev Day heId in the Knesset (organized this year by MK Saeed Al-Khrumi), we presented to its Committee for the Advancement of Women’s Status, data concerning employment in the Negev in general and Bedouin women employment in particular. 

As part of the Negev Day in the Knesset

This year, we released two reports: one, “Homes and Structures Demolitions and Inequality in the Arab Bedouin Communities in the Negev/Naqab” and the second, about “Violations of the Human Rights of the Bedouin Community in the Negev/Naqab during Pandemic”.
We also  contributed to the Human Rights report of the US State Department as well as reporting on  Violations during Pandemic 2020 to the International Lands Coalition.