Tuba-Zangariya is a township of Beduin, located next to Kibbutz Kfar Hanasi in Upper Galilee. It is the only Arabic speaking settlement in the region. It has a junior and senior high school to which students from the entire Galilee are drawn.
Until 2001, our contact with the school was limited to the supervision of Matriculation projects in science for students from the 11th and 12th grades. One of its students even achieved first place in our annual competition for excellence in such projects this year.Last year, the head of the school, Dr. Muhammad el Heib, came to us with a request to develop science enrichment programs for outstanding students in Grades 9 and 10. In co-operation with the teachers at the school, we prepared a program which was implemented in the 2001-2002 school year with a group of ninth graders. We have applied to a number of bodies in the country to give financial support for this activity, but without result as yet. Naturally, bringing any such program into being depends on covering the cost.
As a regional academic institution, our work with Tuba-Zangariya is, of course, very important indeed. Its inhabitants feel themselves isolated in the region, and this sense of alienation also affects the schoolchildren. Bringing a large number of pupils from the township to the laboratories of Migal would not only provide them with significant reinforcement in their science studies, but would at the same time reduce their sense of alienation and contribute to decent neighborly relations between them and their Jewish peers.In the course of studying and working on scientific research, with the aim of educational advancement through co-operative activities, social barriers fall. Mutual respect is fostered and relations based on a sense of equality are strengthened. Now especially, during such a difficult period in the relationship of our minorities with the State and its establishments, such activity represents a national task of the first order.