Tel Aviv Office

"Meddling is the only way to stay relevant." Heinrich Boll

The Heinrich Boll Foundation (hbf) is a German non-profit organization, accredited by the German Green Party (Bundnis 90/Die Grunen), funded by the German Federal Republic. The foundation, with its headquarters in Berlin, is federally organized and from its staff as well as from its legal status independent from the party. The 16-state foundations' main task is to organize the regional political education activities.

The foundation's political priorities in Germany and abroad are:

· Advocating democracy and in particular gender democracy

· Understanding the mechanisms of totalitarism

· Protecting the universality of human rights

· Encouraging environmental protection and sustainable development

· Fostering cross cultural understanding and tolerance

· Supporting grassroots involvement in the political process

· Developing techniques for non-violent conflict management and resolution

· Promoting a strong and independent media culture

· Helping artistic expression

The concrete work of the Heinrich Boll foundation relies on partner organizations with whom we have had and have long-term commitments.

Besides organizing the dialogue and the networking between the foundation and its partners, we fund and provide support through work instruments like:

· Exchange programs

· Scholarships for talented student

· Capacity building seminars

· Workshops for Non-governmental Organizations

· International conference

· Political and scientific expertise

· Studies and publications

The Heinrich Boll Foundation is present in 56 countries around the world with well over 130 projects. Those projects, having been developed with our local partners, take in account the national, regional and cultural development and processes.

Today the foundation's international work is characterized by its massive commitment in Latin America and the Caribbean Islands; however we intend to increase our involvement in particular in:

· Asia focussing on the south and the southeastern part of the continent.

· The Mediterranean basin especially the Middle East, the Maghreb, and Turkey.

· Central and Eastern Europe with specific attention to the republics of the former Soviet Union, Poland, The Czech Republic, the republics of the former Yugoslav Federation and Romania.

Moreover the foundation has started an extensive activity program on the enlargement and the integration of the European Union as well as intensifying the Transatlantic Dialogue with the United States of America.

With the decision to open foundation offices in key regions all over the world we will develop regional-thematic program concepts.

The foundation has 13 offices operating around the world: Brazil, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Cambodia, the Czech Republic, El Salvador, Ethiopia, Israel, Pakistan, Palestine, South Africa, Turkey, The European Union Office in Brussels and the United States of America Office in Washington DC.

The Tel Aviv Office

The hbf involvement in Israel goes back to 1992 with funding activities of a, at that time, little known Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) named Kav La-Oved dedicated to the counseling of non-Israeli workers on their rights.

In the following years we have years we have broaden the scope of our funding activities in the region including Palestine and Egypt. Today in Israel we are financial partners in three additional long-term projects.

Kol Ha-Isha is a NGO focused on the development and the promotion of feminist models of social changes to address the needs of women. Kol Ha-Isha is a supportive environment for women's initiatives, self-expression, dialogue and creativity, and celebrates and affirms women's diverse cultural identities and experiences.

Green Action is a non-profit urban environmental protection organization rooted in the 3 largest Israeli cities of Haifa, Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. Green Action dedicates a large pat of its activities to the task of raising the environmental awareness of the Israeli public in particular the younger part of the population. Green Action maintains a high profile in the local media through spectacular actions.

Eco-Peace (Friends of the Earth Middle East) is an umbrella organization of environmental NGO's working for the protection of the various ecosystems defined by the Eastern Mediterranean to the west and the desert plains beyond the Rift Valley to the east. Eco-Peace's organizational aim is to coordinate and organize the environmental protection across the borders of Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine and Syria. What is a far-fetched dream today will become normality and/or necessity tomorrow.

In 1996 the hbf decided to open two offices in the region, one in Palestine to deal specifically with the Middle Eastern Arab world and another one in Israel.

The Israeli office of the hbf located in Tel Aviv opened its doors in the spring of 1998.

The main tasks of the office team in its day to day operations are:

· Strengthening civil society, strengthening the impact of civil society on the democratic process and civilizing the interaction of the various actors of the civil society.

· Promotion of the various components of the new politics for women and gender democracy, ecology and sustainability, to develop democracy, human rights, and the preservation of peace, media and critical publicity, culture, art and science.

· Presenting an accurate and comprehensible image of the German Green movement including the activities of the political party Bundnis 90/Die Grunen.

· Nurturing the special relation between Germany in and Israel by supporting encounter and organizing exchange programs. In the Tel Aviv office we organize and finance activities and short term projects addressing the four pillars of our work, also in the framework of the Euro-Mediterranean partnership.

· Environmental Protection & Sustainability

· Gender Democracy · Minority Rights versus Majority Rules

· The Universality of Human Rights

Concretely, we organize round tables, seminars, conferences and visits with Israeli and/or German experts addressing the public sector, NGO activists, and the private sector politicians etc. We work on a variety of topics ranging from people friendly city planning, waste reduction, individual mobility versus public transports, women into politics, minority rights, the future of work, constitutional democracy versus common law democracy, security versus human rights etc.

Our office offers to all democratic NGO's to use our premises and facilities for workshops, conferences for up to fifty participants.

Last but not least we are giving space to young women artists to present their creations as their form of communication as well as political expression.

Claude Weinber - Representative

Hannah Rodeik - Associate Director

Ayana Segal - Project Management

Heinrich Boll Foundation

(hbf) Tel Aviv Office

Nahalat Binyamin 24

Tel Aviv 65162, Israel

Tel. 03-5167734/35

Fax. 03-5167689

E-mail: hbstl@isdn.net.il

Heinrich Boll (1917-1985) Heinrich Boll was one of the Federal Republic of Germany most important and best-known authors. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1972 for his novels and short stories. Throughout his life, Heinrich Boll was a passionate advocate for persecuted fellow writers, civil rights activists and political prisoners. He was president of PEN International for several years.

Heinrich-Boll-Stiftung

Hackesche Hofe Tel +49-(0)30-285 34 0

Rosenthaler Str. 40/41 Fax +49-(0)30-285 34 109

D-10178 Berlin Email: info@boell.de