New Student Center for Bedouin Women Opens at Ben Gurion University

Jerusalem, 27 January, 2016 (TPS) -- Be’er Sheva (TPS) – A new student center for Bedouin women students has been opened at Ben Gurion University of the Negev and will serve as a safe “warm home away from home” for Bedouin women studying at the university.

About 70% of the nearly 450 Bedouins who study at Ben Gurion University are women. The center, which is a joint initiative of BGU President Prof. Rivka Carmi and the Arnow family of the United States, will serve to assist Bedouin women in a number of areas including helping students to better speak, read and write in Hebrew as well as provide academic guidance and professional support.

Many Bedouin students are young relative to other Israeli university students and are experiencing independence for the first time, having arrived immediately after high school. The Bedouin women students also face additional cultural pressures with close scrutiny from Bedouin society and are reluctant to ask for help.

The new center will offer the women empowerment workshops, women’s health lectures, social activities and more. It will also allow students a place to rest between classes and to wait for rides homes. A social worker from the staff of the Office of the Dean of Students will serve as older guiding and supportive figure at the center.

“We noticed that women Bedouin students were often to be found sitting in the lobby of the student center early in the morning, and during the day, we saw them hanging out the grass with nothing to do. There had been several attempts to create interest groups specifically for them – an all-women’s sports lesson, a support group, a handcraft workshop. The attempts did not succeed primarily because of lack of participation because of a lack of trust in the “system,” said Merav Yosef Solomon, the head of administration in the Office of the Dean of Students.

Solomon also added that that conversations with the first woman Bedouin clinical psychologist, Dr. Sarah Abu-Kaf, who is also a BGU faculty member, were instrumental in establishing the new center and for creating a “space where Bedouin women can feel safe, where they can rest and hang out.”

Taking part in the dedication of the new center last week were the BGU President, Josh Arnow as the representative of the Arnow family, the Rector Prof. Zvi HaCohen, Vice President for External Affairs Prof. Steve Rosen, Dean of Students Prof. Moshe Kaspi and student representative Eman Abu Aiada.