Tag Archives: Zichron Yaakov

by | March 29, 2012 · 1:45 pm

Leadership Lessons from the LDP Program

The LDP kids planned and managed a Twinning for a whopping 60 kids all on their own!

By Edniesha Curry

What is the definition of a leader? According to the Merriam Webster dictionary, leadership is defined as:

1: the office or position of a leader

2: capacity to lead

3: the act or an instance of leading.

That sounds about right, but when I think about the definition of leadership and the lessons we can all learn from the PPI-ME Leadership Development Program (LDP), I think of:

1: an individual who does not need a title to lead

2: an individual who uses his or her position to create change.

Bashar from East Jerusalem (center) and other LDP youth lead a drill for kids at the retreat.

This past weekend, the LDP held their annual three-day retreat in Kibbutz Sdot Yam. The event was a leadership extravaganza with lots of hands-on training (including designing and leading a Twinning for kids from Tamra and Zichron Yaakov) and a team-building obstacle course. After spending a good amount of time with the LDP, including seeing their hard work at recent retreat, I was able to write down some common leaderships lessons that we call all use in our everyday lives and in our journeys to make the world a better place.

PPI-ME LEADERSHIP LESSONS FOR SUCCESS:

1: Lead with the heart –The LDP kids understand conflict very well and how it affects people, so when they lead, you can see that they put their heart first when they are working with the kids in the communities.

2: Don’t fear change – At the recent retreat, some of the LDP kids who often take the back seat when working as assistant coaches with kids, were put into leadership positions and excelled despite their own fears of training the kids on their own.

3: Sacrifice for others – Coach Khaled sacrifices his time to come to practices with me to serve as a liaison in cases where a coach does not speak English.

4: The power of ‘WE’ – As we all prepared for the Zichron-Tamra Twinning that took place at the retreat, all the LDP kids were helping each other come up with drills to help the kids learn the basketball fundamentals but also have fun.

5: Passion – The LDP kids’ passion for their communities is contagious: you can’t help but join in on all the fun they create for kids.

8: Determination – When the LDP kids were preparing for leading the Twinning at the retreat, they practiced the night before until they knew exactly how their drills were to be performed and what they needed to say to the kids during the twinning.

At the obstacle course, Palestinian and Israeli youth leaders needed to work together and trust each other to succeed.

I hope that when you all look at the pictures you think about how these leaderships lessons can help you fight conflict in all aspects of your life. As the U.S Basketball Trainer here at PPI-ME, every day I learn something knew from our PPI-ME LDP kids. I want to end by saying Coach Eddie is very proud of the PPI-ME LDP program and the changes they are making in my life and their communities. Thank you all for making me SMILE through leadership.

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by | March 8, 2012 · 4:46 pm

Balling Hard: Sample Training Program from PPI-ME Basketball Trainer Edniesha Curry

Do you think this photo was taken before or after all the tough drills Coach Eddy put these PeacePlayers through?

PPI – Middle East Basketball Trainer Edniesha Curry highlights the hard work required to excel in basketball in the drills described below.

This week, I shared a sample basketball skill development session to PPI-ME athletes in Zichron Ya’akov and in Jerusalem at the Hand in Hand School. All the athletes had a tough week on the court, but worked very hard at learning the new drills and all left the gym smiling and happy about the workout. I look forward to creating more programs like this for the PPI-ME athletes and coaches at all training levels.

1. Dynamic Warm-Up

It is very important to use skill specific routines in your warm-up to prepare the body for all the movements in practice; this routine gives me a chance to stress the importance of proper body mechanics. This warm-up should be around 5-10 minutes long.

Walking Toe Raises Side Pivot Hip Flexor Carioca Knee Punch
Ankle flips/Skips Lateral Shuffle (both ways) Lunge Walk (forward/back)
Heel-to-Hamstring Lateral Skips (both ways) High Knee Skips(exaggerated)
Walking Knee Hugs Loose Carioca Russian Skip

2. Core-Training on the Court with the Basketball

You can do core training exercises for repetitions or for time. The key is to be creative to always keep players stimulated throughout the workout. Core training is great for athletes’ balance, stability and injury prevention.

Push –Up (1, or two hands on ball Russian Twists Full Sit up
Planks (ball at feet) Woodchoppers Ball Slams (Reps)
Dips (ball at feet) Bicycles Wall throws (work diff. angles)
Figure eight crunches Toe touches with ball Squat Jumps

 

3. Ball Handling – Tennis Ball Reaction Drills

Partner Passing while dribbling Wall tosses while dribbling Pickups while dribbling

4. Basketball Skill Stations

This week, I worked on the player’s endurance and mental strength by doing four rounds of station work, like in a game, increasing the time each round. You can adjust the station time according to skill level of your players, but each station should incorporate finishes around the basket, shooting fundamentals, footwork shooting and then position break down, for example.

Jab and Attack  series Rip series with chair Floaters off the bounce
Curl series Cone dribbling to pull ups Euro-step finishes

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by | January 19, 2012 · 3:11 pm

Community Spotlight: Zichron Ya’akov

Zichron Ya'akov and Tamra girls at last month's Holiday Tournament

After several successful years in the Jerusalem and Jaffa areas, PPI decided to expand its reach northward. This move up north to start out included Zichron Ya’akov and Tamra. We already shared a little bit about the Arab town of Tamra; now learn about their twinned town, Zichron Ya’akov (or just plain Zichron, as it’s known by the locals).


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Zichron girls share a little bit about Hanukkah at the Holiday Tournament (on the right is Tamra coach Ferial).

Zichron is a small, cobblestoned Jewish town located on the southern end of the Carmel mountain range, about a half hour’s drive from Haifa. Zichron, which today has 20,000 inhabitants, was founded in the late 18th century by a group of immigrants from Romania. Zichron is home to Israel’s first winery, Carmel Winery, which was established in 1885. Till this very day, Zichron is perhaps best known for its vineyards.

PPI – ME first started to get involved in the community last year, and invited girls from Zichron to come to special events such as Peace League and the Spring Tournament. The atmosphere at those events was so positive that PPI – ME added them to our network of community partners. This year, the girls of Zichron are full-time PeacePlayers, coming in droves to Twinnings.

Coach Dorit (left) works with Zichron and Tamra girls on their dribbling skills.

The demand is even higher than we expected, with our two teams in Zichron including nearly 50 girls altogether. Zichron have already come together for a few Twinnings. Thanks to the initiative of Zichron coach Dorit Dahan, we also held last month our first ever holiday tournament in the north. For their next Twinning, the girls of Zichron will pay a visit to their new friends in Tamra.

We’ll keep you posted!

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by | December 1, 2011 · 3:23 pm

A First Twinning for Our New Teams in Tamra and Zichron Yaakov

At first Arab and Jewish girls were hestitant to play together.

First Twinnings are especially exciting: Arab kids meet Jewish kids on the basketball court for the first time, and many times it’s for the first time, period. Although they offer an uplifting sense of hope, first Twinnings are also a challenge. Often enough, kids on either side of the religious-ethnic divide are nervous to meet one another; sometimes they are even downright scared. This, although sad, is not surprising, considering that Palestinians and Israelis, or even Arabs and Jews within Israel, mostly live in separate cities and study in separate schools. What little Arabs and Jews know of each other, or think they know of each other, is from the media, myths and stereotypes. The result is that, instead of viewing each individual as a human being, Arabs and Jews tend to lump each other into faceless groups with uniform negative traits.

Coaches Ferial (left) and Dorit (right) offer a positive example of mutual respect and friendship.

At PeacePlayers International – Middle East, we are trying to combat that tendency by giving Arab and Jewish children the opportunity to meet each other in a fun, fair and constructive environment, helping to humanize the “other side.” On Friday, November 18, we held the first Twinning for our new teams in the Arab town of Tamra and the Jewish town of Zichron Yaakov, located in the north of Israel. You might remember that these two communities, with whom PPI – ME is working for the first time, constitute our first foray into this geographic location, for which we are tremendously excited. We decided to do a joint Twinning for all four teams operating in both towns. Thanks to a high demand for our work, each team boasts around 20 players, so there were 80 girls at the Twinning!

But within an hour, they were laughing and playing with each other.

On hand were Zichron Yaakov coach Dorit Dahan, Tamra coaches Ferial Sakran-Khattib and Shadi Khattib, and of course PPI – ME Basketball Operations Manager Vito Gilic’, whose extensive experience in bridging divides through basketball with PPI is a must-have at first Twinnings. Teens of the Leadership Development Program from East/West Jerusalem and Zichron were also on the court to assist coaches and make sure everything ran smoothly. It did, but of course, as always, the first reaction from the kids was fear. ”At first the girls were a little in shock,” says Coach Dorit. ”Vito split them into pairs for the [Twinning] drills, and they had to hug each other as part of the drill and learn each other’s names. They tried to pair up with girls from their own community, but we made them pair up with girls from the other community.” What’s most important, though, is the change that kids undergo, even after just an hour or two. Dorit testifies to this as well: “Within an hour, they were all laughing and having fun and you couldn’t even tell them apart.”

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by | October 6, 2011 · 2:39 pm

Community Spotlight: Tamra


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This programming season, which kicked off last month, PPI – ME is reaching 150 new kids! Some of these children have joined in existing PPI communities, like Jerusalem and Jaffa, but others are joining us from totally new communities. One of the new communities where PPI – ME has begun working is Tamra, a working-class Muslim-Arab town in the Lower Galilee region of Israel, located 15 miles from the ancient port city of Acre. Tamra is a city of about 28,000 inhabitants. Tamra is a very young city, with around 70 percent of the population under the age of 30. For all of those young people, you need a lot of schools; that’s why this relatively small municipality has 13 of them.

A city street in Tamra.

We decided to start working there after meeting basketball players and coach Ferial Sakran Khattib, a Tamra native. Ferial is a phenomenal basketball player and a sport for social change trailblazer known for being the first Arab woman ever to play for the Israeli Premiere League team and for representing the country around the world. These days, Ferial is focusing on the educational side of basketball and is coaching girls’ basketball players in her hometown.

Ferial (left) talks to Palestinian Leadership Development girls last year.

We first met Ferial last year, when she came to run a workshop with Palestinian young women of the MEPI Leadership Development Program. As one of the few, although the numbers are growing, Arab women basketball players in the region, Ferial offers inspiration as a woman and as an Arab, showing that with determination and hard work, anything is possible.

Starting this year, we will have two girls’ teams in Tamra: one team of Minis and one team of 11-13-year olds. Tamra’s “twin” team is Zichron Yaakov, a Jewish town about half an hour to its south. The two new communities of Tamra and Zichron Yaakov constitute an important step for PPI, because they mark our first expansion into the north of Israel, where many Arab and Jewish towns exist side by side, but with almost no contact between each other’s inhabitants. Through basketball, we’re now helping Arab and Jewish children in the north finally get to know their neighbors and have fun in the process. Welcome to PPI, Tamra!

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by | May 13, 2011 · 12:45 pm

Fun in the Sun: PPI – Middle East’s Annual Peace Education Retreat

Palestinian and Israeli children build peace while building sandcastles.

What do you get when you cross Palestinian-Israeli cooperation and conflict resolution education with intense b-ball action on the court and a little R&R on the beach? You get PeacePlayers International – Middle East’s annual Peace Education Retreat. From May 5-7, 50 children and teens from Jerusalem, Mateh Yehudah and Holon converged on Kibbutz Sdot Yam on the Mediterranean coast for three action-packed days, with Palestinian and Israeli kids playing, dining and lodging together. Participants were divided into two age groups, with teen participants serving as counselors and mentors for younger kids. Youth leaders served as positive role models, offering a positive example of coexistence, tolerance and cooperation.

Youth leaders of the Leadership Development Program teach “The PPI Way."

As part of the retreat, young participants received an in-depth immersion in PPI’s Peace Education Curriculum, which is based on the Arbinger Institute’s Anatomy of Peace model. The PPI curriculum, which relies on personal storytelling and which takes place wholly on the basketball court, aims to teach Palestinian and Israeli kids to see each other as people, instead of as objects. The youth of the Leadership Development Program even led an educational session themselves, showing that their years learning the curriculum had paid off.

One of the highlights of the retreat was a special tournament with a guest basketball team from Zichron Yaakov, just a wee 10-minute ride from the kibbutz. Kids were divided up into 3 integrated teams, with each team being led by two teen coaches, one Israeli and one Palestinian. Youth coaches worked with kids to strategize plays and build teamwork. At the end of the tournament, all teams received medals for their efforts and then convened on the grass outside for corn on the cob and other snacks.

PPI – ME Basketball Operations Manager Vito Gilic’ teaches conflict resolution skills on the court.

The kids learned hard and played hard, so we made sure that in between they got a chance to relax their minds and muscles, and enjoy the sun and sand. Yes, there were sandcastles, Frisbee throws and water fights a plenty.

You and I would call this peace building. We would say that these children are actively helping bridge the deep divides that pervade every aspect of their day-to-day lives. They, on the other hand, would just call it fun. “Why do you grownups have to make everything so big and complicated? It’s the easiest thing in the world,” they said as they ran by us on the sand amidst giggles and a game of tag.

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