Negev Coexistence Forum for Civil Equality
פורום דו-קיום בנגב לשוויון אזרחי
منتدى التعايش السلمي في النقب من أجل المساواة المدنية

Dear friends, colleagues and supporters:

NCF’s annual calendar is available for purchase. It includes photographs taken by children from the unrecognized Bedouin villages of Umm al-Ḥīrān, Rakhamah, az-Zaʿarūrah, Ṣwāwīn, Bīr Haddāj, az-Zarnūg, ʿAtīr, Tal ʿArād, and Khašim Zannih. We congratulate our field and photography coordinators, for leading such incredible workshops with the children.

We congratulate and bless all the residents of the Negev/Naqab, with a year of justice, welfare, and equal rights for all. 

In August, we organized a tour with diplomats from Germany, the United States, and France and visited the unrecognized village of Khašim Zannih, the unrecognized village of az-Zarnūg, and the recognized village of Abu Tlūl aš-Šahbī. 

By the end of September, we organized together with Adalah and the Regional Council for the Unrecognized Villages in the Negev, a joint tour for new incoming diplomats and international organizations in the villages of Abu Tlūl aš-Šahbī, az-Zarnūg and al-Furʿah. 

During the tours, participants spoke with the Bedouin residents who shared their needs for housing security, their fear of the constant demolitions, frequent intimidating police visits and the State’s “development” plans that disregard the wellbeing of the residents in their villages.

As part of our advocacy efforts to achieve better education conditions for Bedouin children, we sent a letter to the Ministry of Education, Ministry of Economy, Ministry of Communications, and the Knesset, together with RCUV, the Israel Internet Association and the Clinical Legal Education Centre from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, requesting to address the urgent need to find solutions for Internet access for students in Israel as part of an inseparable part of their right to education. To read the full letter in Hebrew please click here