But Abu-Saad s father, a truck driver, recognized the value of education and sent him to a boarding school in the more developed northern region of Israel. When I did well in my studies he would reward me with a watch or a radio or some other prize, recalls Abu-Saad. I also saw what a difference education made in the lives of my cousins who lived in the Gaza Strip. It was clear to me from the beginning that I would work in education, says Abu-Saad. That s where the most work needs to be done in my community.
Education is the answer.
The Bedouin of southern Israel have the highest rates of fertility, infant mortality, high school dropouts and unemployment, coupled with the lowest level of literacy in the country. The traditional nomadic life of the Bedouin came to an abrupt end with the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948. The state s efforts to settle the Bedouin in seven government-established towns in the Negev including Lakiya has proven to be a dismal failure. Lacking industrial areas, parks, community centers and even a library, these communities are more like dormitory towns than viable cities. Half the Bedouin have refused to move to them, preferring to live in ramshackle huts with corrugated iron or asbestos roofs in the middle of the desert.