Mahapach-Taghir

Each of the seven Jewish and Arab communities in which MT operates runs the following programs:
- Academic and pedagogical tutoring
Each child in the Learning Community receives two weekly hours of individual tutoring and two hours of group activities from trained university students who receive incentives for social involvement. Each child has his or her own work-plan, which outlines anticipated improvement and is decided upon by the parents, teacher, and the tutoring student. Emphasis throughout the year is put on reading and writing skills, on developing learning methods, on improving the ability of independent learning, on developing the communal sense of belonging amongst the children, and on identity, self-image and self-confidence issues.
- Parental involvement
In each Mahapach-Taghir community, there is a work team comprised of six to twelve local parents and other residents that take on the role of the community board. This board, the Steering Committee, forms the crux of the pedagogical work done at the Learning Community and the communal work of Mahapach-Taghir. The Steering Committee is encouraged to hold responsibility for the Learning Community, to set its program and agenda, and to become actively involved in shaping the community’s future. Steering Committee members take active roles in organizing the Learning Community’s public activities, such as the Community Action Days, workshops, and local campaigns organized throughout the year. Each Steering Committee meets at least twice every month.
- University Student Activism
Embedded within the Learning Community framework is the opportunity for university students to tutor children and adolescents while receiving a scholarship for social involvement. Mahapach-Taghir encourages the students to become involved in community work beyond their role as tutors by taking part in local Steering Committee sessions and local campaigns, staying in touch with the parents, and meeting with students in other communities and organizations in order to create new channels of cooperation. The students attend two national seminars every year: one dedicated to pedagogical training, and the other to community work and activism. In both seminars (and especially in the second one), they are exposed to the work of other organizations for social change that Mahapach-Taghir brings in as speakers. In addition, they attend five workshops throughout the year that provide them with the tools and knowledge essential to pedagogical and communal work.
- Building Women’s Leadership in Education
In line with Mahapach-Taghir’s identification as a feminist NGO, the organization takes active, definitive steps towards fostering the ongoing empowerment of mothers with children active in the Learning Communities, for whom equal educational opportunities have been identified as a shared concern and a common ground for inclusive cooperation. This includes systematic empowerment training that exposes participating women to human rights concepts, feminist agendas, and the practices of civil society. This training allows them to gain experience in initiating and carrying out communal campaigns while encouraging them to engage in inter-communal cooperation.