Sowing seeds of STEM

Ibrahim Nsasra worked on his family’s farm as a child. He now holds a master’s degree from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and is an entrepreneur with successes in several fields.

His dream is to help his fellow Bedouins reap the benefits of education, as he did. “I believe in education; it’s the key to success, and mobility,” he said. “We need to integrate…not only in Israel but around the world. STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) is the tool for this goal.”

Which is why STEM subjects anchor the curriculum at Tamar High School, which Nsasra founded 10 years ago-along with its parent organization, the Tamar Center-with NIS 1 million of his own funds. The school now teaches 200 students, grades 9-12, from across southern Israel. It offers its students tools to succeed, from laptops and labs to guidance counseling and job-search preparedness.

In May, Nsasra visited several Jewish organizations in the U.S., including JUF, along with Narjes Abu Frieha, the center’s Deputy Director of Resource Development, and Iman Alatawna, the school’s Director of Human Resources and a board member.

Tamar’s STEM curriculum includes courses in chemistry, physics, electronics, robotics, AI, and data analysis. To further prepare students for university and working life, the school also teaches Hebrew, English, public speaking, time management, and social skills. “We need to help them develop their self-confidence-to trust in themselves, and to try, try, try. Such a student will be the role model for the Bedouin community,” Nsasra said.

To further their development, “we bring them role models, engineers who work at Google and Microsoft” in Israel, Abu Frieha said, to act as mentors.

The school has sent many of its graduates on to college, with most of them being the first in their families to get a higher education. Three quarters of their first cohort, graduating in 2019, enrolled in STEM subjects at Ben-Gurion University (BGU). Today, they have six cohorts-some 600 alumni; 77% of them are in STEM studies, with several in graduate school.

Not only do Tamar’s alums earn college degrees; several have returned to Tamar as teachers. Tamar trains its own teachers-both in the STEM material itself, and how to best teach Bedouin teens.

And there are many. The 300,000 members of the Negev’s Bedouin communities, Nsasra reports, comprise 35% of the region’s population, and “66% of the Bedouin community is under 21, which is the niche in which we need to invest.”

Abu Frieha joined Tamar because of her own stifled ambitions. “I finished high school, but I was different from my female classmates and friends in that I knew where I wanted to go-to study English at BGU. None of that happened. I knew what I wanted to do, but not how to do it,” she said. “Tamar is the place that gives teens the opportunity, and the belief that they can. I joined because of that belief, in the opportunity to dream, and make the dream come true.”

Before Tamar, Alatawna said, Bedouin high schools offered few, if any, STEM subjects. Now, Tamar shares its methods with these other schools and is even planning a K-12 campus to begin STEM education earlier.

One of Tamar’s main functions is serving as an education incubator. “The entrepreneur’s role is to start. This is our philosophy: To start. To make a change in our society, we need to take responsibility, Nsarsa said. “We have high potential in Arab society, especially in the Negev, for success. What the youth need is for us to first give them the opportunity, skills, and education to lead them, drive them to dream, believe, and work hard. Then they can reach higher.”

“Our goals,” he said, “are to make the Negev a better place for the Bedouin community, and to make Israel a better place for everybody.”

To learn more about the Tamar Center, visit mtamar.org.il/en.