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Paths to Empowerment. Ten Years of Early Childhood Work in Israel. INSTITUTION Bernard Van Leer Foundation, the Hague (Netherlands)

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Paths to Empowerment. Ten Years of Early Childhood Work in Israel. INSTITUTION Bernard Van Leer Foundation, the Hague (Netherlands) DOCUMENT RESUME ED 321 868 PS 018 929 AUTHOR Paz, Ruth TITLE Paths to Empowerment. Ten Years of Early Childhood Work in Israel. INSTITUTION Bernard Van Leer Foundation, The Hague (Netherlands). REPORT NO ISBN-90-6195-018-X PUB DATE Jun 90 NOTE 164p. PUB TYPE Books (010) -- Reports - Descriptive (141) EDRS PRICE MF01/PC07 Plus Postage. DESCRIPTORS Case Studies; *Change Agents; *Community Development; *Compensatory Education; Early Childhood Education; Economically Disadvantaged; *Educationally Disadvantaged; Foreign Countries; *Information Dissemination; *Intervention; Program Descriptions IDENTIFIERS Bernard van Leer Foundation (Netherlands); *Israel ABSTRACT In this book, Bernard 'wan Leer Foundation programs in Israel that combined early childhood education and community development approaches across a 10-year period are described. Chapter (1) provide an introduction; (2) discuss the evolution of this combined approach, its thet,:etical roots in the separate disciplines of early childhood education and community development, and the interlinking of the two; (3) trace the work of the Foundation in Israel;(4) provide a case study of the Ofakim project, an early education and community development project in a development town; (5) discuss strategies and tactics of intervention for social change and empowerment; (6) describe the role of local women paraprofessionals, their selection, training, and status in their communities; (7) describe the wide range of home visiting programs in Foundation-supported projects in Israel; (8) illustrate the variety of programs which can be organized outside the home in community-based early childhood projects/programs in clinics, family day rare centers, parent-run cooperative nurseries, community-based preschool provision, enrichment and activity centers, and resource and training centers; and (9) discuss the Foundation's dissemination projects. Appendix 1 provides an encapsulated description of the major projects in Israel supported by the Bernard van Leer Foundation in the past and at present. Appendix 2 discusses the background to educational disadvantage in Israel. (RH) Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original document. ED 3H2i :8:6 EF3 p1 IAbout the Bernard van Leer Foundation What is the Bernard van Leer Foundation? The Foundation takes its name from Bernard van Leer. a Dutch industrialist who died in 1958 and gave the entire share capital of his worldwide enterprise for htnnanitarian purposes. What does the Foundation do? The Foundation supports innovative projects which are designed to improve the educational. social and developmental opportunities of children from birth to eight years of age. Over 100 major projects are currently being suppported in over 40 countries around the world including both industrialised and developing nations. In all cases, the focus is on those children and communities that arc least able to benefit from educational and developmental opportunities because of social and other forms of disadvantage. These include the children of ethnic and cultural minorities. children living in urban slums. shanty towns.und remote rural areas, and children of teenage parents. Who organises the projects? The Foundation does not organise or manage projects. It works with partners in the countries where the projects are located. For example. project partners include government departments. local municipalities, trade unions, academic Institutions and voluntary organisations. These local partners are responsible for all aspects of a projectdevelopment. management. training, implementation, evaluation. They also contribute a proportion of the costs in terms of both money and services. A key objective in the initiation and implementation of projects is that the effectiveness of the work they succeed in devel aping will last long after the Foundation has withdrawn from the project. How does the Foundation work? The Foundation does not just giv e grants. it also provides technical advice, i information and professional support to projects in the field. The Foundation Network consists of people associated with projects and the staff of the Foundation. An important part of the support given by the Foundation is the stimulation of exchanges of information. ideas and experiences between projects. Inter-project v isits are arranged. seminars and workshops are organised, and publications based on project experiences arc produced. Cow illustration: Pia Afahauck (maimed on inside hack cow) 0 a.) PATHS TO EMPOWERMENT Ten years of early childhood work in Israel RUTH PAZ I 1 Bernard van Leer Foundation June 1990 4 About the author Ruth Paz was born in Vienna, Austria. Following the Anschluss of Austria with Nazi Germany in 1937, she fled to England as a 'children's transport' refugee. Eventually reunited with her family, she emigrated to the United States, where she completed her secondary school education and joined a Zionist youth movement. In 1950 she married Yehudah Paz and soon after the couple emigrated to Israel, where they became founding members of a new kibbutz in the northern Negev regionKibbutz Kissufinz (the name means `strivings'), which is their home today. During her almost four decades of life in the kibbutz, Ruth Paz worked for many years in agriculture and in other branches of the kibbutz economy, taught English and special education and served as principal of the local primary school. Throughout the years she has been deeply involved in the life of the community and has been elected to a variety of administrative positions. At present she is serving her fourth term as general secretary of the kibbutz. She holds a BA degree in Behavioural Sciences from Ben Gurion University and is completing work for her MA degree in Sociology and Anthropology. Ruth Paz was seconded by the United Kibbutz Movement to head two major Bernard van Leer Foundation-supported activities in Israel: the ground-breaking Community Education Project in Ofakim, and the establishment of the Community Education Centre at the Pinchas Sapir Regional College of the Negev, at which she worked for over a decade. During this period she also participated in a number of Bernard van Leer Foundation symposia, seminars and training workshops. This book is the outcome of the conceptual approach and the practical experience of those years of work within the Bernard van Leer Foundation framework. CIP DATA KONINKLIJKE BIBLIOTHEEK, DEN HAAG Paz, Ruth Paths to empowerment: years of early childhood work in Israel / Ruth Paz. The Hague: Bernard van Leer Foundation ISBN 90-6195-018-X SISO 441 UDC 372.3(569.4) Subject heading: young child care; Israel 5, Contents Acknowledgements v Preface vii Author's foreword ix Glossary xi i Chapter: I Introduction 1 2 Empowerment of the disadvantaged: from compensatory education to community-based education 4 3 The Bernard van Leer Foundation in Israel 12 4 The story of an intervention: Ofakim 30 5 Intervention, empowerment and the dialectics of social change 40 6 The Jewel in the Crown: the indigenous para-professional community educator and change agent 52 7 The nuts and bolts of intervention: home visiting programmes 61 8 The nuts and bolts of intervention: programmes outside the home 78 9 The third cohort: dissemination and moving to scale 94 10 Postscript 103 Appendix one: Major projects supported by the Bernard van Leer Foundation in Israel 106 Appendix two: Changing perceptions, changing responses: the background to educational disadvantage in Israel 1 1 1 Index 138 Maps Countries where the Bernard van Leer Foundation is supporting projects viii Israel and the surrounding countries viii Israel showing projects supported by the Bernard van Leer Foundation xiv iii 6 Acknowledgements Almost by definition, this book must be seen as the joint endeavour of the many people on whose actual work and experience it is based, and of the many others who supported their endeavours. It is hardly possible to name them allnor perhaps desirable, for inevitably one risks the sin of ommission. However, without them there would be no book and I wish to acknowledge my debt to them and my gratitude. The ten years of my life which I spent in intimate association with the Bernard van Leer Foundation, initially as Director of the first community education project in Israel, in Ofakim, and later, of the Community Education Centre at the Pinchas Sapir Regional College of the Negev, were very special ones. It is a rare privilege to dream a dream and to be granted the opportunitynot to speak of the material supportto transform it into reality. Gratitude is due first of all to the Bernard van Leer Foundation, its Board of Trustees, and its staff who made this possible. I am deeply indebted to Dr Willem Welling, fromer Executive Director of the Foundation, who was throughout unstinting in his encouragement and support, and Dr A.W. Wood, Dcputy Executive Director, Programmes, whose profound understanding and empathy for the needs and aspirations of the 'disadvantaged' children and adults in our midst and passionate belief in the potential inherent in individuals and communities, played a major role in the development of community-based early childhood education and of the process of empowerment described here. A special word of thanks is also due to Dr M.C.E. van Gendt, the present Executive Director of the Foundation, without whose support this book would not have reached publication. No less, I am indebted to my colleagues throughout the Bernard van Leer Foundation network, whose acquaintance I was privileged to make on various occasions, and whose ideas and experience served to enrich my own. Closer to home, I acknowledge an abiding debt to the men and women of the Foundation-supported projects in Israel: professionals, para-professionals and dedicated members of the communities in which the projects took root and developed, whose story is told here. Similarly, I am grateful to my mentors and colleagues at the Department of Behavioural Sciences at Ben Gurion University and at the Pinchas Sapir Regional College of the Negev, whose ideas and knowledge, unstintingly shared, helped to shape my own.
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