An intensive weekend retreat, with 80 Israelis and Palestinians young adults, creates the space for positive first interaction with 'the other', trains them in active interfaith encounter and how to lead it, and consolidates them into a joint community that then starts regular monthly encounters. This was tried numerous times and proved effective.

Challenge

This project addresses the well known challenge of sustainable Israeli-Palestinian peace. The existing ignorance of 'the other', enabling prejudices and fears, makes conflicts possible. Participants, from both communities, engaged in deep and positive interaction self-educate to replace negative attitudes by mutul understanding, respect and trust. The group develops into a "mini-community" modeling the desired inter-communal relations, growing gradually to include the larger communities

Long-Term Impact

The 80 transformed and trained participanting young leaders will start on-going Israeli-Palestinian encounter activities, creating mini-communities modeling the desired inter-communal relations, gradually amending the overall inter-communal relations between Israelis and Palestinians.

References

1. http://www.interfaith-encounter.org
2. http://interfaithencounter.wordpress.com/groupseventsprojects/recent-updates/
3. http://interfaithencounter.wordpress.com/groupseventsprojects/related-documents/
4. http://interfaithencounter.wordpress.com/mediapress/
5. http://interfaithencounter.wordpress.com/about/awards/

Additional Documentation

https://www.globalgiving.org//pfil/1520/projdoc.doc

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