The Bedouin Community in The Negev and Project Wadi Attir – Post October 7th
Saturday, March 9, 2024
5:00 p.m. EST / 2:00 p.m. PST
An Eva Haller Salon Series event featuring Michael Ben-Eli, Mohammed Alnabari, and Jamila Abu-Kaf.
Please note that this is a private event. However, the recording of this event will be made available shortly after the event.
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The Eva Haller Salon Series brings together artists, scientists and media makers from around the globe. This Saturday, Dr. Michael Ben-Eli, Dr. Mohammed Alnabari, and Ms. Jamila Abu Kaf will join Eva Haller and Heidi Haller Groshelle to share stories about the Wadi Attir project, the Bedouin community in the Negev and the special issues it faces, and to discuss the unique agricultural school run by the project.
Project Wadi Attir is a groundbreaking initiative of The Sustainability Laboratory and the Bedouin community in The Negev Desert. The project demonstrates an approach to sustainable dryland agriculture that leverages Bedouin traditional values, aspirations, and experience with modern-day science and cutting-edge technologies. The project showcases the implementation of The Lab’s holistic sustainability principles demonstrating innovations in green technology, community and economic development, environmental stewardship, and more.
In addition to its many innovations in sustainability practices, Project Wadi Attir has emerged as a beacon of peace, hope and light, providing needed support to its diverse neighboring communities during a very challenging time.
Hosts
Eva Haller is an activist, philanthropist with a passion for mentoring non-profit leaders serving youth, women and the arts. She received an honorary doctorate from Glasgow Caledonian University and was awarded their 2014 Magnusson Fellowship. She is a trustee of the Rubin Museum of Art and the University of California Santa Barbara Foundation. Eva Haller was honored by Forbes for mentoring not profit programs serving the community. Eva was the founding board Chairman for Free the Children, she serves on the board of Blade of Grass, Asia Initiatives, Sing for Hope, News Literacy Project and annually presents the Women Transforming Media Award as part of the MY HERO Film Festival.
Heidi Haller Groshelle, over the past three decades, has consulted with 200 plus technology start-ups and growth stage companies from the US, Europe and Asia. Her clients appear in top-tier, main-stream-media outlets including ABC-TV, Businessweek, Forbes, Los Angeles Times, Newsweek, New York Times, Time Magazine, USAToday and The Wall Street Journal, and in target-right online news outlets like Engadget, gizmodo.com, Mashable!, MSNBC.com, and TechCrunch. She is also an expert in social media, blogging and new media. In 1997, Heidi introduced the first plasma flat-screen televisions in the U.S., working closely with Fujitsu, Hammacher Schlemmer, and Starbucks. Heidi has a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of California at Santa Barbara. Her passions also include creating raku (a Japanese technique of ceramic firing) and high-fired pieces of ceramic art. She lives and works in the middle of San Francisco, where she grew up.
Special Guests
Dr. Michael Ben-Eli is founder of The Sustainability Laboratory, a non-profit, research development and educational organization established by to develop and demonstrate groundbreaking approaches to sustainability practices, expanding prospects and producing positive, life-affirming impacts on people and ecosystems in all parts of the world.
Prior to launching The Lab, Michael pioneered applications of System Thinking and Cybernetics in management and organization. Over the years, he worked on synthesizing strategy issues in many parts of the world and in diverse institutional settings, ranging from small high technology firms to multinational enterprises, manufacturing companies, financial institutions, health care and educational organizations, government agencies, NGOs, and international multilateral organizations including the World Bank, the United Nations Environment Program, the Global Environment Facility, and others.
In recent years, he has focused his work primarily on issues related to sustainability and sustainable development and has been working to help inspire leaders in business, government, community, and youth accelerate a peaceful transition to a sustainable future. Michael is the author of the widely acclaimed five core sustainability principles. He has been the driving force behind developing The Lab’s flagship development project, Project Wadi Attir, along with Dr. Mohammed Alnabari, and is leading development of The Lab as a world-wide network of advanced research, development, and education centers, based at different ecological zones.
In 2016, Michael was inducted into the International Green Industry Hall of Fame and recognized with the organization’s Lifetime Achievement Award. In 2019, Michael received the prestigious Cosmic Fishing Award by the Synergetic Collaborative of the Rhode Island School of Design. The award is given to individuals “who demonstrate a dedication to advancing the use of Buckminster Fuller’s Design Science strategies in helping humanity better understand complex connections with natural systems.” In 2022, he received the Environmental Hero Award from the International MY HERO Project.
Michael graduated from the Architectural Association in London and later received a Ph.D. from the Institute of Cybernetics at Brunel University, where he studied under Gordon Pask. He was a close associate of R. Buckminster Fuller, with whom he collaborated on projects involving research on advanced structural systems and exploration of issues related to the management of technology and world resources for the advantage of all.
Dr. Mohammed Alnabari has been serving as the Mayor of Hura, one of the major Bedouin townships in the Negev, 2004-2018. The movement for Quality of Government presented Mayor Mohammed with a Knight of Quality Government award.
Mohammed earned a PhD in Organic Chemistry from Ben-Gurion University and brings with him extensive experience in the private sector, following a successful career in the pharmaceutical industry.
He represents a new brand of leadership in the Bedouin community and has been instrumental in developing close and effective working relationships with various ministries of the Israeli government, private sector and civil society. He led Innovative new approaches for improving the lives of the Bedouin community in the Negev.
Mohammed is a founding member and co-chairman of Project Wadi Attir in partnership with Dr. Michael Ben-Eli of The Sustainability Laboratory; he has been leading the development of this unique economic development model. He is serving as the chairman and founding member of Desert Stars, a nonprofit organization established to nurture a new leadership within the Bedouin society, which takes responsibility for the creation of a better, more just and more equal society and facilitates a productive coexistence in the Negev. He is also a founding member and chair of Alsanbel social enterprise for the employment of women in partnership with Local NGO Ajeec-Nisped and a board member of Ben Gurion University.
Today he is leading a cross sector high impact social economic initiative named Yanabia.
Dr. Alnabari was born in 1970 in the Negev desert. He is married and has six children.
Ms. Jamila Abu Kaf is Director of the Agricultural School at Project Wadi Attir. In this capacity she has been developing special programs serving pupils from an expanding number of regional schools. She has been working on increasing community involvement in agriculture and developing awareness in sustainable lifestyles and issues related to climate change.
Jamila holds a Bachelor of Science degree in education from the Kaye College in Be’er Sheva, and a master’s degree in Archaeology and biblical studies from the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev.
In addition, Jamila received a diploma in community work from the George Brown College in Toronto, Canada, is an alumna of The Sustainability Laboratory’s Global Sustainability Fellows program, and she has recently completed a one-year program offered by the Hechel Center of Sustainability and the Ministry of Education, in partnership with the Schumacher College in the UK. The program focuses on empowering schools in developing programs on climate change. She is also a fellow of the Intema Educational Program, a network of Bedouin leaders for local innovations.
Jamila grew up and lives in the Bedouin village of Abu Kaf. She is married and a mother of two children.
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