In March, ACRI submitted an administrative petition to the Court for Administrative Affairs in Beersheba, demanding the establishment of a kindergarten for the children of the unrecognized village of Rahma. The village lies within the area of jurisdiction of the Yeruham Local Council. Its inhabitants are internally displaced persons who were settled there by order of the Israeli authorities in the 1950s but never received recognition. Recently the Goldberg Committee recommended that the village be recognized on its present site.
The petition was submitted on behalf of ACRI, Mehuyavut: Commitment to Peace and Social Justice, the head of the Rahma village committee, as well as a number of Jewish Yeruham residents who are active in a local civic action group acting in conjunction with the neighboring Bedouin community to promote recognition and improvement of the living conditions of Rahma.
The petition demands that the Ministry of Education and the Yeruham Local Council honor their joint responsibility and establish a kindergarten for the children of Rahma close to their homes. At present, Bedouin children between the ages of three and six – and even older – have no educational framework as is their right according to law, because of the lack of an accessible kindergarten. The petition claims that this situation constitutes a violation of the children’s right to education and to equality.
