The Bridge to Peace Program includes two major components:

• "Know Your Neighbor" informal educational program, in which more than 12,000 children will participate this year
• "Mixed Teams" program, culminating in the National Mixed Teams Tournament, in which 12 mixed teams (24 groups) will participate this year

Goals

• Creating common ground, a meeting place, and mutual acquaintance
• Encouraging health and wellbeing through sports activity
• Changing stereotypes and reducing prejudice
• Emphasizing that which youth from different backgrounds share
• Overcoming the tension and enmity among Arab and Jewish children

Scalability

• This model is unique thanks to its use of the common love of soccer among children as a bridge.  Soccer, like music, is an international "language" and motivator. 
• This model can be implemented in additional communal and educational settings.  It can be developed to include greater numbers of children, in an expanded geographic reach both within Israel and beyond.
• The impact of the program reaches the children directly involved, as well as their peers, siblings, parents, neighborhoods, and communities in ever-expanding circles.

Outcomes

• Through getting to know each other and the joint sports activity, there is significant improvement in the children's understanding of each other and in their relationships, expressed on the field as well as off the field before and after the practices. 
• The stigmas and prejudices often prevalent in the communities of the participating children, which make connections among them tense, are counteracted in the program's overall environment and through its strong and consistent focus on the common 'language' of soccer. The connection which begins on the field is successfully extended to broader interpersonal and social contexts. 

"Know Your Neighbor"

The first step in the "Know Your Neighbor" process is the meeting and training of local staff teams, who learn together across the diverse types of populations and communities. They also play soccer together. One of the points of focus of the mutual learning, in addition to the relevant background and substantive content, is awareness of the sensitivities that exist in this educational and social process.

The local staff teams the prepare the children in their respective programs with information and perspectives for the meetings with children different from themselves. The meetings of the different groups of children take place at home games of the premier league team, at regional tournaments, and in informal education and social meetings among the groups designed specifically for this purpose.

In all, more than 12,000 children will participate in the "Know Your Neighbor" program this year. We expect once again to witness a dramatic process of change in attitudes and the shattering of stereotypes on the part of the children (and staffs!).

"Mixed Teams"

This program includes all of the elements described above, plus special meetings and visits in which each partner in the pair hosts the other in its home community and mixed teams are created.  In all, more than 700 children will be directly involved in the mixed teams intensive programs in 2007-2008.

Communities participating in the mixed teams programs will include Arab and Jewish towns, Bedouin villages, sheltered boarding schools for children at risk, rural communities, Jewish and Arab neighborhoods in cities, immigrant children from Ethiopia, and groups of Jewish, Arab, and Druze children with special needs.

The very special nature of this program calls for special preparation and implementation. Groups are chosen from among the most active and successful programs in the overall Bridge to Peace project, and pairings are carefully thought out among neighboring programs.

The infrastructure for the planned meetings of the children is prepared in intensive meetings of local staffs individually and together, using materials designed by Hapoel's informal education staff. Careful attention is paid to sensibilities of the various participating populations and the complexity of the tasks that will lead to achieving the program's goals.

For most of the participating children, this will be their first opportunity to take part in such a process.  Each group hosts the other in its home community and on its home field.  In this meeting, the children get to know the surroundings of the host group, taste a bit of their community culture, experience both what is different and what is familiar, and in many cases meet the families of their peers as well. More often than not, these meetings end with hugs and promises to meet again.

"National Mixed Teams Tournament" 

The climax of the program is the National Mixed Teams Tournament, which takes place in the spring at the practice fields of the Hapoel Tel Aviv premier league team. 

Surrounding the tournament, the children and staffs share with each other their experiences from the process that leads up to the tournament.

The tournament is a great experience.  The spoken testimony of the children and the local staffs are beyond even our high expectations. The unspoken, very clearly visible testimony of the interactions on and off the field elegantly speak volumes about what has changed and has been accomplished.

The impact of this experience on the children, the staff, the families and communities cannot be overstated.  A national tournament in which the winning team is by definition a mixed team of Arab and Jewish children is a major event with major educational significance.