Even in times of the pandemic, work on the library is progressing; The building will be usable again for the new school year in September!
Call for donations enables support from the Freundeskreis
Many thanks to everyone who responded to our call on March 28, 2020. Thanks to their support, we were able to transfer a total of € 7,000 to Givat Haviva. We topped up the donations received from the association with the money that we had planned for our anniversary.
Givat Haviva needs our help! Call for donations on March 28, 2020
Dear supporters of Givat Haviva, dear members of the Circle of Friends,
Last October, Givat Haviva was able to look back on 70 years of its existence, and we are glad to be able to count many of you among the members of our association, which can now look back on 25 years of work. Unfortunately, our events around the 25th anniversary of the association on April 1st have been canceled for the time being. But that is bearable and can be made up for.
HToday, however, I do not turn to you without need, because in GivatHaviva the current work of the campus is at stake under the sign of Covid-19, which would mean a bitter loss for the peace work not only there Finally, the fact that many meeting and visit programs are on hold (such as the teacher training with Yad Vashem, youth trips and much more). They cannot simply be postponed until after the pandemic, because then hopefully new projects will be pending again and capacities will be fully utilized. (Nevertheless, we want to do everything we can to ensure that "postponed" does not mean "canceled"!)
Tuesdaye Encounters and the activities in the “Artspace”, the Arab-Jewish cultural center or other facilities on campus generated the necessary income. Now that they are exposed, the peace center's financial resources are at risk. This is bitter because Givat Haviva is on the brink of lack of liquidity, so I would like to ask for your support. Every euro counts! In recent years we have always been able to count on the help of the state governments of North Rhine-Westphalia and Rhineland-Palatinate for equipping the GivatHaviva campus. And the federal government has also proven to be of great help by supporting the renovation of the Bauhaus library there. I don't want to forget the thanks for private donations and for the funds that associations, foundations and churches have made available to us on a project-specific basis.
Well sind we actually rely on funds to ensure ongoing operations and not "just" individual projects so that we can get through the current crisis. With the international school, Givat Haviva is well on the way to training young people from all over the world to become peacemakers on a permanent basis Work is still going on digitally - as it is with us - and only a few students who cannot go home and the supervisors are still in the boarding school.
AlsoWe, from the Freundeskreis, have increasingly shifted our work to digital projects and want to bring young people in Germany and Israel into video conversation with one another; a personal exchange at a later date is not excluded. We also want to show that things are going on in Israel and here, and encourage new approaches and new collaborations.
Damith all of this can continue, we need your support! Thank you very much for your open ear and best regards,
Ruthh Ratter, chairwoman ofGivat Haviva Deutschland eV
Donations against receipt (beginning of 2021) to the Freundeskreis Givat Haviva Deutschland eV with the note "Covid-19" on our account below will be forwarded one-to-one. Donation account Givat Haviva Deutschland eV: IBAN DE39 5519 0000 0353 4510 16
Here is Yaniv Sagee's letter of March 27, 2020:
Dear friends,
as COVID-19 drastically affects our lives, our world, and theGivat Haviva community, we know that many of you are facingunprecedented challenges and concerns. I want you to know thatwe, your friends at Givat Haviva, are tackling the same issues butthat we are in this together with you.I'm writing because we want you to know that we are healthy andsafe and we hope you and your loved ones are, too.
Above all else, this is the most important thing. As noted above, we're going through unprecedented challenges at the moment. I want to keep you apprised of the current situation, though as I'm sure you're aware, it's changing day by day. • Givat Haviva Campus: All of Givat Haviva's international delegations and visits scheduled for the coming weeks have been postponed as our beautiful campus has been closed to all outside visitors. These cancelations have created amassive loss of income. At this time, only two groups maintain some presence on campus: our committed staff and our non-Israeli International School students.
• Givat Haviva International School: With the approval of the Ministry of Education, the school's accommodations haveremained open for the international students (the school's Israeli students, both Jewish and Arab, have been sent hometo be with their families). Remote learning will take placeduring this time, as is the case in most of Israel's universities. Our counselors are supporting and assisting the students oncampus in every way that they can; the students will not be beleft alone.
• Hebrew Language Enrichment: The project team is in close coordination with the Ministry of Education to conduct remote learning for the students; Despite the current situation, our mission to strengthen the Hebrew of Israel's Arab middleschool students will continue.
• Bara'em Hi-Tech: The year's first semester came to an end with the initial round of final exams and the second round has been postponed until further notice. The second semester was scheduled to start on Friday, March 13 but because of the situation, our partner in the program, Netanya Academic College, has begun the semester via online instruction and students are continuing their studies from the safety of their homes.
• The Jewish-Arab Center for Peace: As of March 13, meetings between local schools were canceled, with inschoolprogramming taking their place. However, this wasalso temporary and with the school closures, we anticipate having to cancel much of our programming that occurswithin the schools until the new academic year.Unfortunately, due to restrictions of gatherings, we have alsocanceled all Women's Empowerment courses and any scheduled activity for our Shared Communities program.
• The Collaborative Arts Center: All of the art courses have been canceled. The project team of our photographyinitiative, Through Others' Eyes, is currently bringing the student participants together through virtual encounters and isworking to bring the current exhibition online.
This is a very dynamic situation and we are still learning andadapting to it as new directives come in. We realize that our update is only partial as the full picture continues to unfold; thingsare changing so quickly that by the time you read this, the situation may already be significantly different.Due to the cancellation of many of the paid groups on campus and the need to keep the international school open during spring break, we expect a serious cash flow problem . Many of our friends anddonors have been very supportive and we're actively trying toraise emergency funding. If you have the ability, please consider supporting us during this crucial time.Givat Haviva has made it through challenging times beforeand we will do so again. I wish good health to you and toyour family. We will get through this, together. Keep healthy above all,
The general meeting will take place on November 13th. at 4 p.m. in the form of a video conference.
The festive event on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the FreundeskreisGivat Haviva Germany eVin the state parliament of Rhineland-Palatinate on April 1st, 2020 from 5:30 p.m .:canceled!
Exhibition in Hamburg Wilhelmsburg in the Helmut-Schmidt-Gymnasium
(Krieterstraße 5) from January 17th to February 21st
Dates 2019:
Above is a picture review of the reception in the residence of the Ambassador of the State of Israel on the occasion of Givat Haviva's 70th birthday
26.6.2019
The Evangelical Church Congress in Dortmund meant three days of continuous presence in the exhibition halls for our association (June 20th - 22nd). Thanks to the efforts of Dagmar Sadzik and Werner Biernatzki in particular, we were able to interest many people in the peace and encounter work in Givat Haviva. Our flyers found plenty of sales and there were a number of new contacts for further networking.
June 15, 2019
Dear members and friends of Givat Haviva Deutschland eV,
in the meantime our exhibition was in Kaiserslautern (February / March) and Landau (April / May / June), where it was very popular. In Landau, a seminar by Prof. Vidal dealt with the topic of "Middle East" and organized an evening parallel to the exhibition, on which Christian Sterzing first reported on his EAPPI mission in Palestine. Afterwards, the students presented their point of view of the situation in Israel and Palestine in a role play. The evening ended with a round of questions and discussions with the podium, in which I, as chairman of the Freundeskreis, also took part. Those present searched intensively for peaceful solutions for both sides. The conversations ended with a meal together (everything prepared by the students). A successful evening for everyone.
From January / February 2019:
Our current exhibition "Look at me!" to be seen in the state parliament in Kiel. The well-attended kick-off event in the Schleswig-Holstein State House was opened by the President of the State Parliament, Klaus Schlie, who reported on the various impressions from the visit of the Council of Elders to Israel last November. He was deeply impressed by the trip and what he experienced there, but especially by the conversations on site. After the introductory words to the exhibition (Ruth Ratter) and to Givat Haviva (Torsten Reibold), he and the five other members of the council of elders who were present expressed their firm intention to act in the spirit of Givat Haviva's encounter and peace projects. The presence of Ehsan Abri gave the group led by the moderator J. Ehlert (NDR) a special note, as he works with his "all in" projects on a voluntary basis with young people from all over the world who have found refuge in Schleswig-Holstein . It became clear how important it is to create cooperation where there is no encounter in everyday life. The film "Dancing in Jaffa" will be released on January 31st. again impressively prove!
