Lissan
This organization has already been registered
Someone in your organization has already registered and setup an account. would you like to join their team?Profile owner : a***a@l****n.o*g
Mission Statement
Lissan is a nonprofit organization that promotes linguistic justice by recognizing language as an essential resource and a fundamental right. Our mission is to make Jerusalem’s two spoken languages, Hebrew and Arabic, accessible to population groups with a heightened need for language skills acquisition. Our programs are culturally, thematically, geographically, and economically tailored to the needs of our target populations. Since 2013, we have been conducting projects that teach Hebrew to women from East Jerusalem, and Arabic to medical teams from the Western part of the city. We also provide resources to make bureaucratic information more accessible to Arabic-speakers, and operate a training program for Hebrew teachers. Our long term vision is of a Jerusalem with equal presence of the city’s two dominant languages, Hebrew and Arabic, in bureaucratic systems and in the public sphere.
About This Cause
Lissan was established as a non-profit organization in 2015 by a group of young Jerusalemites. Lissan’s projects are born out of a direct response to the challenges faced by Jerusalem residents, due to the city’s complex reality Jerusalem is home to 927,000 residents (as of 2019), of which approximately 60% are Jews and 40% are Arabs. Most Jewish residents live in the Western part of the city, while most Arab residents live in the city’s Eastern part. Jerusalem is composed of many diverse populations, including a multitude of nationalities, cultures, and religions. It is a city of universal significance, as well as the center of a tense conflict. These factors contribute to Jerusalem’s status as a highly sensitive and precarious city, with a complex daily reality for many of its residents. 45% of Jerusalem’s inhabitants remain below the poverty line – higher than any other major Israeli city. Moreover, 77% of Jerusalem’s Arab population lives in poverty, as compared to 25% of the Jewish population of Jerusalem. East Jerusalem residents suffer from extreme poverty, limited employment opportunities, educational disadvantages, and a lack of physical and economic infrastructure. Public life in Jerusalem is conducted primarily in Hebrew; this includes public services, government institutions, employment, health, higher education, and leisure activities. Jerusalem’s daily services and activities are overwhelmingly accessible solely to Hebrew-speakers. Consequently, lack of Hebrew proficiency is one of the main obstacles preventing East Jerusalem residents from leading a normal lifestyle or obtaining an equal standard of living. The situation is even worse for East Jerusalemite women, who are less exposed to Hebrew than their male counterparts. Concurrently, there is a lack of Arabic knowledge in the Hebrew speaking community, which prevents professional personnel from providing essential services to East Jerusalem residents, who constitute more than a third of the city’s population. Due to the difficulty of this reality, in 2013, a group of women from Issawiya, East Jerusalem, approached a group of young West Jerusalemites in search of a Hebrew study program that would suit their pressing needs. These women from Issawiya were facing a language barrier on a daily basis, particularly in their attempts to deal with governmental institutions, access to medical care, and integration into the labor market, higher education, and leisure activities. They also expressed how their lack of Hebrew knowledge was causing feelings of low self-esteem and dependency on others. As a result, we began holding informal weekly meetings to learn Hebrew. As the number of participants increased, we started recruiting more volunteers and, in collaboration with the Issawiya Community Center, we established the volunteer-based “Medabrot Ivrit – Women Speaking Hebrew” program. The growing demand for participation in the project, together with a mounting interest in our activities from parties in both East and West Jerusalem, led us to establish Lissan in 2015.