Tsur Mishal

Tsur Mishal, a former Shatil Everett Fellow for Social Justice, co-initiated and serves as the director of Ecofilm North: Local Festival for Global Change, a Green Course project held in Rosh Pina and Sakhnin. Originally scheduled for late summer 2006, the festival had to be postponed due to the war. Once the rocket fire subsided, Tsur went into high-gear to make the festival a reality. The Festival focused on sustainable and egalitarian rehabilitation and development after the war and turned into a forum for discussion of the environmental risks and issues exacerbated by the war. In addition to social and environmental films from around the world, it featured discussions with directors, guided hikes, an eco-fair, street theatre and a photography exhibit of the burning of the  treasured Rosh Pina Wadi. Says Tsur, "When I intervened at a social change organization through Shatil's Everett program, I gained perspectives on social action and acquired the tools to actualize my ideas. This influenced my professional development." Since the Ecofilm Festival's first run in 2004, 10,000 people have been exposed to its important message.

Riki Tegave

When Riki Tegave was a child in the village of Ambover in Ethiopia, she and her playmates would run after every plane that passed, shouting, "take us to Jerusalem!"  Her longing was fulfilled, when, after a treacherous month-long trek and year-long stay in Sudanese refugee camps, she arrived in Israel at the age of nine.  Riki earned a BA in education and an MA in counseling from the University of Haifa.  After seven years of volunteering in the Ethiopian community, she co-founded Hiyot (Life) an organization of academic women who work to advance the Ethiopian community in Haifa.  During the war, Riki joined other activists of Ethiopian origin in a SHATIL-led tour of shelters in the North to assess the needs of Ethiopian immigrants and to offer a listening ear and words of encouragement.  Hiyot distributed food to needy immigrants and, with SHATIL's help, organized a five-day outing to Jerusalem to provide respite from the bombing for Ethiopian families, most of whom were experiencing their first war.  In SHATIL's first post-war public hearing in Haifa, Riki testified about the serious neglect of the Ethiopian community during the war: no information provided in Amharic, far-away shelters and no food of medicine.  She reported that traumatized children of Ethiopian origin still have not received appropriate psychological support.  Speaking of Hiyot, Ridki says, "I don't know where we would be today if it hadn't been for SHATIL.  SHATIL enables the different to find strength in their difference.  It gives you the confidence to be different and still be able to lead."

Yardena Michael

Yardena Michael grew up in Haifa, the third of 10 children of new immigrant parents from Iraq. When she left her husband after 16 years of marriage, Yardena had to raise her four children alone without child support. She had only a high school education and no work experience. After joining a Shatil-run support group for single parents, Yardena was inspired to work for social change. In November 2006, Yardena testified at the Shatil-coordinated public hearing held in Haifa about the difficulties she and her family experienced during the war. Her children suffered from acute anxiety. Her daughter contracted an infection from the unsanitary conditions in the shelter and had to be hospitalized to receive intravenous antibiotics. Yatrdena said that the only aid she got during the war from non-profit organizations. She is currently heading a project to advise women in the process of obtaining a divorce, of their rights in an initiative sponsored by Itach Ma'aki: Lawyers for Women's Rights. "I want to help other women so that they can have an easier time than I did in dealing with legal hurdles when starting a new life for themselves.," Yardena says. "Shatil gave me the strength to believe that I can make a difference."

Wasim Abbas

Wasim Abbas didn't realize that the moment he saw a poster advertising SHATIL's Everett Social Justice Fellowship Program his life would change.  With a BA in political science and Hebrew literature, he was accepted as an Everett intern at the Israel branch of Amnesty International, where he developed a program for human rights education in the Arab sector.  "It wasn't easy," Wasim recalls.  "People didn't have a high consciousness about human rights issues."   But he persevered.  Says Wasim, "The internship was a big influence on my life.  It strengthened my interest in human rights issues and gave me practical experience.  It influenced my decision to do an MA in international relations with a specialty in human rights."  Wasim was participating in an international victims' rights seminar in Strasbourg, Germany last summer when he received the tragic news that his 15-year-old sister, Doaa, had been killed by a katyusha rocket that exploded in the family's home in the village of Maghar during the war.  Two other siblings and Wasim's mother were also injured.  As the eldest male sibling, Wasim has taken a break from his studies and left his job coordinating the Identity and Belonging Project at Ibn Khaldun, the Arab Association for Social Development, in order to devote his time to taking care of his traumatized family and petitioning the government for their due compensation.  Despite the tragedy, Wasim still says, "I love life and I want the people around me to live good, honorable lives.  Respect for human rights is a precondition for living such lives - and for peace. "

Nabila Espanioly

Four days after the outbreak of the war, Nabila Espanioly called an emergency meeting at her Nazareth-based Al-Tufula Pedagogical Center to decide on strategy and action.  She needed a way to translate her anger and frustration with the war into positive action.  That afternoon a rocket fell in Nazareth killing two children.  Nabila, who has dedicated her life to social activism for the Arab community, women and peace, was born in Nazareth in 1955.  Returning from Germany with a degree in clinical psychology in 1989, Nabila founded Al-Tufula (Childhood), which focuses on early childhood care and development and women's empowerment in the Arab community in Israel.  Aware of the lack of shelters, safe rooms and alarm systems in the Arab community, along with the inexperience of dealing with trauma, Al-Tufula developed an Arabic radio broadcast with emergency information and designed a stress relief kit to help parents and children deal with trauma.  Al-Tufula recruited 60 volunteers and with assistance from SHATIL and NIF support 6,440 kits were created and distributed to families in 54 villages.  After the war, 10,000 packages of school supplies, including manuals on trauma and post-trauma were distributed so that Arab children would be prepared for the new school year.  "Since 1992 SHATIL has been a partner in advancing early childhood education in the Arab community and stood by me and Al-Tufula throughout all the trials and tribulations during and after the war," says Nabila.  SHATIL helped us to find emergency resources and organizational networks and gave me an opportunity to make the Arab Israeli community's voice head."