Welcome

Welcome to New Ways of Seeing, an exciting new cultural project for the young generations of the Occupied Golan. Over the coming year, the project will be organising four series of workshops, events and cultural expeditions taking place both inside and outside the Golan Heights.

The News Ways of Seeing project will provide young people with the chance to:

• Enjoy a wide variety of art forms, including music, literature and the visual arts. Within the project, participants will be exposed to artworks of local and global importance through trips, talks and meetings with the artists themselves. Participants will also be actively encouraged to create their own art in workshops of film-making, creative writing, and music composition.
  
  
• Discuss the importance of art in the spheres of politics and wider society. Participants will be asked to consider how art can be used to encourage tolerance, freedom of expression, and critical thinking. The project will provide young people with the opportunity to debate among themselves and with leading thinkers in Israel and Palestine about the social and political importance of art and culture.
  
  
• Discover the written and oral histories of the Golan Heights. Contact with young volunteers and local artistic and cultural personalities will bring to light some of the area's untold stories. These stories and narratives will open the ground for discussions about cultural identity, both personal and communal.
  
  
• See the physical landscape of the Golan Heights in a new light. Through expeditions and field trips, the young people of Golan will get to see sites of historical importance and consider them in their current context. The fact that some of these sites have been neglected, and some have remained visible through tourism or security, will open up discussions about place and memory in the Golan.

Through these initiatives, the New Ways of Seeing projects hopes to:

• Empower young people in the Golan Heights, by creating a greater awareness among young people about their basic human rights and identity, and providing them with critical thinking skills which will set the standard for positive public engagement and constructive dialogue for their communities.
  
  
• Encourage a generation of politically and culturally active young people in the Golan heights. It is hoped that through a heightened awareness of cultural identity and democratic values, this generation will be equipped to engage in the public sphere and face the difficult decisions they face in daily life.