Hilia Tsedaka of Win Win Jerusalem describes the Mosaic Project Crafts & Communities Fair- An Inter-Community Empowerment Plan at M.I.T.
MIT’s Jerusalem 2050 Program, a joint initiative sponsored by the Department of Urban Studies and Planning and the Center for International Studies, announced today the winners of its global Just Jerusalem competition. The open contest sought proposals that addressed different aspects of urban life in a futurist Jerusalem. Participants were asked to look beyond the current nation-state conflict and, instead, focus on ‘just’ the city as a place where, by mid-century, its citizenries co-exist in peace.
More than 1,150 people representing 85 countries registered for the competition. Win-Win Jerusalem’s “Mosaic Project: Jerusalem Crafts & Communities Fair: An Inter-Community Empowerment Plan” , won an honorable mention at the competition.
“The Just Jerusalem competition addresses one of the greatest challenges of our times: the elusive peace between Israelis and Palestinians. To that end, the winning entries offer hopeful, creative, and passionate ideas for potentially altering daily life in Jerusalem in small and large-scale ways,” said Diane Davis, director of Jerusalem 2050, professor of political sociology, and head of the International Development Group in the Dept. of Urban Studies and Planning at MIT.
Co-directing the Jerusalem 2050 Program with Davis is Leila Farsakh, a research affiliate at the Center for International Studies at MIT, and assistant professor of political science at the University of Massachusetts/Boston. It was a presentation by Farsakh at a local public school that inspired the two middle school students to enter the competition.
“The geographic and substantive dispersion of our winners was especially pleasing. I take this as evidence of the deep importance of the problem we are addressing and as validation of the way we went about attacking it– as an independent research university dedicated to generating creative solutions for some of the world’s most intractable problems,” said Richard Samuels, member of the Jerusalem 2050 Steering Committee, Ford International Professor of Political Science and director of the Center for International Studies at MIT.
Jerusalem is an ethnically-diverse city beset by tremendous tensions and poverty. The Win Win Jerusalem Mosaic Project aims to improve the psycho-social infrastructure and economic situation by using the many advantages of diversity and establishing ongoing citizen-involved multicultural festivals. Jerusalem will become a lively multicultural festival attracting tourists yearlong. By supporting communities in reviving ethnic traditions, we motivate them to take an active role in creating the cultural-face of Jerusalem and support inter-community tolerance.
The project focuses on a unique two-fold scheme, combining economic, cultural and educational tools:
- In-Depth Mosaic Empowerment Program: Offering youth and adults courses in business, craft-preservation, communication-skills and cultural-diversity—for ethnic-groups as Ethiopian-Jews, Bukhara Muslims, Christians, Gypsies.
- Urban-Representation: The Mosaic Crafts & Communities Fair: The empowerment-program will lead participants to set up their unique section in the yearly two-week fair, familiarizing the general public with the diverse communities located in Jerusalem (their customs, history, art and unique merchandise). Communities will sell traditional merchandise and improve their cultural-pride. Smaller ongoing fairs will be established in future-years.
The Mosaic Project empowers communities to fulfill their needs and take responsibility for their life-conditions while respecting the needs of neighboring communities. It also appeals to governmental needs, as economic well-being, tourism and sustainable inter-community ties. Such an interdisciplinary project can minimize conflict and create sustainable psycho-social infrastructure for change. Since June 2007 a Jewish/Arab, and religious/secular staff of volunteers, experienced in multicultural-work and reconciliation-techniques, is being compiled. Staff includes people of different expertise as management, economics, social-work, craft-preservation, and neighborhood-development. We are raising funds for this social-change project focusing first on empowerment courses and mentorship offered to selected communities and on overhead expenses. Additional funding will be raised for the multicultural fair, once several communities have prepared their unique crafts.