Ameinu has established strategic partnerships with four dynamic Israeli organizations: NISPED, BINA, YEDID and Dror Israel, which have meaningful social justice missions. Our goal is to be supportive of the work being done by these organizations, while providing our members with a unique connection to Israel.
Our partnerships provide : people-to-people meetings; volunteerism in Israel; a channel for direct contributions; grant support to our partners reaching out to US foundations and community organizations; public education and in-depth understanding of key issues in Israeli society and more.
Members and supporters of Ameinu will find that our strategic partnerships offer an Israel connection with valuable benefits that cannot be accessed or offer access to an Israeli portal that cannot be reached through traditional channels, unlike any they can find through the traditional channels.
About NISPED
The Negev Instititute for Strategies of Peace and Economic Development (NISPED) is a non-profit association which promotes peace and development, focusing on the centrality of the civil society. Founded in 1998, NISPED serves as a center for education, training and project development for societies in transition. Their transition projects focus on conflict resolution, governance in newly democratized communities and economic and social advance for minorities.
NISPED conducts courses, seminars and workshops for leaders, activists and trainers drawn from relevant civil society and governmental bodies; it engages in the initiation, planning, guidance and implementation of concrete projects; offers consultancy services to public and private institutions in Israel and abroad. It also acts as a facilitator in networking between groups with similar interests and agendas.
NISPED’s operates through its four centers of activity:
The International Center for the Promotion of Small and Medium Enterprises focuses on economic empowerment on the international middle-eastern and local level, providing relevant training, teaching, project promotion and consultancy services in this field.
The Peace and Progress Center focuses on conflict resolution, post-conflict development and education for peace.
The Arab-Jewish Center for Equality, Empowerment and Cooperation strives for equality in all areas of life, works to empower the Palestinian-Israeli community, and fosters cooperation between Jewish and Arab populations.
The International Center for Cooperative studies focuses on the promotion and development of cooperatives, of people-centered enterprises and of similar endeavors.
To learn more, visit NISPED’s website
About BINA
BINA, which means wisdom in Hebrew, is called in English “The Center for Jewish Identity and Hebrew Culture. Founded in1996, BINA is a vibrant center for the Jewish notion of repairing the world. It provides innovative programs for young adults. Its flagship project, the Secular Yeshiva, combines action based on three values:
▪ Jewish Study
▪ Social Action and Social Justice
▪ Community and Leadership
BINA is also an acronym for the Hebrew “A Home for the Creation of the Nation’s Soul”e; a term coined by the Hebrew poet Haim Nachman Bialik.
Founded in response to the assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in 1995, a diverse group of intellectuals and educators founded BINA to explore the deep rifts that were now apparent in Israeli society. Feeling that there was no longer a common Jewish narrative and value system in Israel, BINA committed to analysis through their Jewish roots in a pluralistic, analytical way.
BINA programs focus on young adults, tomorrow’s leaders and today’s agents of change. BINA helps them learn about their Jewish roles as citizens and leaders of Israeli society and the Jewish people. BINA’s programs aim to inspire a lifelong appreciation of textual study and a heightened sense of social justice. BINA sees these values as essential to a compassionate, humanist national ethos, which is both Jewish and Israeli.
For more information visit BINA’s website
About YEDID
YEDID (“friend” in Hebrew) was established in 1997 to promote social justice in Israel by operating Citizen Rights Centers in poor communities around the country. Now operating 20 Centers and Satellite offices, YEDID is changing the face of Israeli society by empowering individuals and communities to break the cycle of poverty in economically disadvantaged and disenfranchised areas. YEDID actively promotes the values of human dignity, individual and communal responsibility, equality, social action, voluntarism and tolerance in a multicultural society.
YEDID’s goals are to empower low-income Israeli citizens from all backgrounds to access their social and economic rights and obtain benefits to which they are entitled; assist Israelis to break the cycle of poverty through community empowerment programming; encourage voluntarism, community involvement and social action; foster social cohesiveness by developing relationships between different sectors of Israeli society.
Since its founding, YEDID has helped 80,000 individuals and families from across the spectrum of Israel’s multicultural society: Jewish, Arab and Bedouin citizens; veteran Israelis from North Africa and the Middle East as well as Eastern Europe; immigrants from Ethiopia, the FSU, and Argentina.
YEDID’s Citizen Rights Centers use the skills and energy of more than 800 volunteers. More than three-quarters of these volunteers are former clients and the rest are students and professionals in the legal, education, psychology and social work fields.
For more information visit YEDID’s website
About Dror Israel
Dror Israel is a Zionist educational movement established by the graduates of the HaNoar HaOved VeHaLomed youth movement. Currently numbering 1,200 young men and women, the members of Dror Israel have chosen to live according to the values of equality, peace, volunteerism and Tikkun Olam. They have established educators’ kibbutzim, develop and run educational programs and guide and teach in a variety of formal and informal educational frameworks.
The educator kibbutzim are located throughout Israel’s socio-geographic periphery. Each such urban kibbutz has 30-80 members aged 25-35, all working and volunteering in the field of education. Dror Israel reaches over 100,000 children and youth through its expansive and varied programs. These include:
▪ Seminars for schools and educational organizations.
▪ Activities in educational centers and institutions.
▪ Running workers’ rights centers for working youth.
▪ Becoming social activity coordinators and counselors in Jewish, Arab and Druze cities, towns and villages.
▪ Coordinating and being counselors in the activities of HaNoar HaOved VeHaLomed.
▪ Leading youth delegations to the concentration and death camps in Poland.
▪ Guiding social programs Social in Regional councils and schools.
▪ Guiding in Museums.
▪ Heading activities in schools and educational centers of the “Dror Batey Chinuch” school network.
▪ Programming Jewish-Arab Co-existence activities and
▪ Organizing activities with refugees from the genocide in Darfur and the Sudanese Civil war.
Movement members engage in Israeli civic society as central activists in the social protest that began during the summer of 2011 and “Brit Choshech L’Garesh,” an organization founded to fight racism motivated by misguided Jewish fanatics.
The members of the movement act out of a sense of mission to realize the vision of the founders of the Zionist movement: Theodore Herzl, Berl Katzenelson, the members of the pioneer Zionist movements in the Holocaust and others.
You can learn more at Dror Israel’s website
