Community Service Program (CSP)

Although there are many opportunities in Israel for community service the vast majority draw participants from the Jewish community.  After completion of high school young Jewish adults are conscripted into military service or participate in alternative service programs. Such service programs provide significant benefit to the country, including investing youth in Israeli society, promoting work ethics and morals, transferring basic life and professional skills, and enhancement of integration.  For young people, it builds professional and vocational skills and forms networks that span throughout the society.  Individuals who do not participate in the military are disadvantaged in the work force and ultimately on the periphery of society.

Community service programs are proven to increase community pride, sense of self and purpose for the participant, and invest them in the greater community of the country.  The participants are enriched through skill-building, responsibility, networking, and ultimately a higher education then they might have attained without the program.  The general public benefits from placing underserved or disenfranchised youths in productive positions.  Finally, the state benefits by increasing the connectivity of all its citizens resulting in a domestic stability. 

PROBLEM
For a variety of reasons, the Israeli-Arab communities do not or cannot participate in such programs.  The Israeli-Arab communities face increasing unemployment (above the Jewish-Israeli national average) and the youth are disconnected from the larger Israeli experience by not participating in the military or other national service programs.  In Israel the military serves a myriad of purposes beyond the defense of the state. 

Although programs exist that include Arab citizens, they are primarily designed to meet the needs of non-Arab participants. For example, the IDF and most national service and economic development programs are targeted for and attract almost entirely non-Arab citizens or are unavailable in Arab villages.  Most of the previous attempts to service the Arab sector have not been successful due to the fact that the models were based upon pre-existing efforts constructed for Jewish Israelis rather than creating new, innovative programming. 

The Israeli government policy is to support efforts that invest Arab citizens in the Israeli system, and raise their quality of life.  From the Or Commission:  “…In this context, the state must initiate, develop, and operate programs emphasizing budgets that will close gaps in education, housing, industrial development, employment, and services... In this connection, the committee added that all government agencies must find the means to allow Arab citizens to express their culture and identity in public life in a respectable manner…”

CSP is a direct attempt to close gaps in education, employment, and community development. 

PROJECT DESCRIPTION
As a registered nonprofit in Israel and the United States, the Democracy Council has a unique position as both a local and international organization.  Drawing upon the Democracy Council’s extensive experience with the Palestinian communities and reputation in the Israeli-Arab sector, the Community Service Program (CSP) would serve as an administrator for a service program for post-secondary school age youth in the Israeli-Arab communities.  CSP would be a privately run, nonpolitical program for the benefit of the participants and local communities with the support of the local officials of the Israeli-Arab communities and the approval of the Government of Israel.  It would, however, remain unaffiliated with any government entity. It will be designed from the ground up accounting for the nuances of the Arab community along with the policies of the state.  CSP would be launched as a pilot program in an outlying underserved town which could later be expanded.  In sum, CSP would:

• Actively identify and recruit youth for participation.
• Negotiate reserved slots for CSP participants in local NGOs and charitable institutions, which may include hospitals, civil society organizations, schools, after-school programs, and community economic development organizations.
• Place participants in appropriate positions and monitor their activities.

Each participant will receive a certificate of completion and a full scholarship to an institute for higher learning, e.g. university, local college, vocational training, etc. 

SCALABILITY
The pilot would be initiated in one town. The programs would be designed with the expectations that successful implementation in one town would be replicated until becoming a sustained, nation-wide service program.  Replication of the model would benefit from leveraging the single management platform and structure to provide the service across the country. 

For more information, please contact:
Michal Miller
mlmiller@democracycouncil.org
+1 310 479 2441