In 2006, a
group of Beer-Sheva
parents, academics
and
community activists in the city and its environs, founded the Hagar Association as a response to the
present
reality in the Negev, where about 600,000 citizens, a quarter of them Arabs, live side by side but in
segregated
spaces. Up until 2007, there was not one educational or social framework in the Negev in which Jewish
and Arab
children could meet and engage in meaningful activity together. The Hagar founders believe that creating
such
a shared bi-lingual educational framework can promote knowledge and understanding of the “other’s”
heritage,
religion and customs, and thus help to bring about positive change in the region.
