What People are Saying About Project Wadi Attir

“Project Wadi Attir is a wonderful project, a model of sustainable development for the Bedouin community in the Negev. This community has been suffering for decades of a lack in income resources, a situation that led this population group to suffer of poverty, high levels of unemployment, underdevelopment, low levels of education and of inadequate skills needed to be involved in a modern and thriving society.

The project has the purpose to use the Bedouins' comparative advantages in the field of agriculture and in particular in growing sheep and goats with an environmental friendly technology. Economic activity will combine the work of men and women, each in their field of expertise, and will be guided by the ideas developed by the Sustainability Laboratory, that will soon be established also in the Desert Research Institutes of Ben-Gurion University in Sede Boqer.

Once the project is realized, it will undoubtedly serve as a blueprint for the development of rural areas in Africa and other Less Developed Countries. I am very optimistic of the success of this project under the leadership of Dr. Michael Ben Eli, whose creativity and imagination is put to use to conceive, organize and orchestrate the process.”                             

Prof. Jimmy Weinblatt, Rector, Ben- Gurion University of the Negev.

“I heard about your project. It is something very good. There is nothing like it here. It is very important not only for this area but for the whole country.”

Hisham Abu-Sholdom, 2nd year student at BGU.

“Project Wadi Attir has unique significance in a variety of ways. Perhaps the most significant and potentially far reaching of these is in the creation of a number of creative "linkages" in the conceptual, institutional and organizational aspects of the project. These "linkages" are not only important in defining the originality of the project's approach; together they represent a multi-faceted potential which, if realized, will impact meaningfully on the Bedouin-Arab community, on the Negev region and on Israel. Additionally, it also may be of importance globally.”

“Project Wadi Attir is creating a new reality of empowerment and hope for the future. It is establishing a new success model which will help the community break away from needy patterns of dependence, encouraging a move to responsibility and self reliance. In particular, the project creates an unprecedented new situation whereby women are equal partners in leading a significant development process with men. Involvement in the project will open new horizons and new opportunities for women and strengthen their ability to influence the fabric of family and community.”

Amal Elsana-Alh'jooj, Director, AJEEC.

“This is a first project of its kind in the Bedouin sector that is able to attract such a large and diverse group of people, with different talents in so many areas, all working for a common purpose. The project offers a golden opportunity for people in the Bedouin community to organize in an independent, democratic fashion, with emphasis on common goals, shared effort and commitment to community values.”

"It has been an honor for me to participate as one of the founders of Project Wadi Attir. This unique project involves a whole range of pioneering concepts. It constitutes an important breakthrough in the area of sustainable development, an idea which resonates well with values and principles that were deeply ingrained in the Bedouin society, prior to the era of urbanization of the last few decades.

The project is being developed at a time of growing recognition of failed government plans in the Bedouin sector in all the vital sectors of economic, social, educational and environmental development, paralleled by failures in the Bedouin sector itself. This project proclaims to both: there is another way!

The uniquely creative process of planning and managing this project involves a true partnership between academia, NGOs, Community activists and consultants, government offices, private sector entities, a local Municipal Council, Kibbutzim, and local herd growers from the Bedouin community. It is bound to offer a model for other initiatives in the region and elsewhere.

I have learnt much during the last year from this project, in particular, from Dr. Michael Ben-Eli, founder of the Sustainability Laboratory in New York, who master minded this initiative and was able to gather around him a group of believers in his Sustainability Principles that are driving Project Wadi Attir.”

Dr. Mohammed Alnabari, Mayor of Hura.