Highlights of my work as Founding Executive Director of BUSTAN - a Jewish/Arab NGO

Built, Stocked and Staffed a Medical Clinic: Innovated the award-winning project and campaign to green build the Wadi el Na’am medical clinic (Unrecognized Village #32) and developed a team of Jewish/Arab volunteer doctors to provide medical services for 6,000 indigenous El Azazme Bedouin citizens of Israel until securing government services in the underserved village;

Built and Established a School: in East Jerusalem to serve 100 indigenous Jahalin Bedouin children, K-5 with recycled materials; researched and collaboratively ran a three-year advocacy campaign;

Established a Green Learning Center: Designed programming for the Center including weekly public events, workshops and courses to promote healthy communities through sustainable and water-wise resource use in Israel’s Negev;

Launched the “Children's Power Project” an award-winning five-year program to provide solar and medical equipment to chronically-ill Bedouin children and pioneer the enabling of carbon offsets;

Built and Established “Women’s Learning Site”: with medicinal and indigenous plants (Tel Sheva); Produced the first ever three-day festival at an “unrecognized village” for 500 participants. Pioneered the introduction of solar ovens to the region, planted orchards, and built a playground from recycled materials;

Formulated and guided three distinct “Negev Unplugged” all-day Environmental Justice tour programs: Researched and taught a training program for Jewish and Arab guides to run the tours. Over 3,000 tour participants;

I ran BUSTAN for nine years, and I dreamed of transitioning BUSTAN to new leadership that reflects the diversity of our community. Our staff, board, interns, and consultants now include Israelis, both Jewish and Bedouin, as well as internationals - leaving us well positioned both locally and internationally. We also recently opened our Green Center in Beersheva, so we have a home in the Negev. With these accomplishments, I leave BUSTAN with full confidence - knowing that our innovative work will continue to grow and flourish in the competent hands of Ra'ed Al-Mickawi and our experienced staff. Ra’ed was born and raised in Tel Sheva, a government-planned Bedouin township, and worked previously in filmmaking and public relations. He joined BUSTAN after covering our project to build the Tel Sheva Learning Site for Medicinal Herbs. He was so inspired that he made a complete career change - this is indicative of the passion and commitment that Ra'ed brings to the job and I am sure that under his leadership BUSTAN will thrive.

We have continued the struggle with integrity. We have gained many supporters that challenge forced relocation policies, the unsustainable industrialization of land and culture and its accompanying bankrollers and supporters - the greenwashers. We have gained members and friends that promote the fair and sustainable allocation of public resources. I planted seeds 9 years ago that have now sprouted into an orchard with a 4 person staff and a humble Green Center in Beer Sheva, with some of Israel's most renowned and visionary green designers as BUSTAN consultants. There is much work to be done to go beyond slogans and symbols as we strive to affect change in the Negev's “Last Frontier.”

During my 15 years in Israel/Palestine, Devorah catalyzed projects and designed, and ran campaigns in Israel and the Occupied Territories to promote social and environmental justice. In 1999, she founded BUSTAN. Brous is a writer, and an internationally-renowned speaker on the conflict between Israel and the Bedouin; Greenwashing; and the political and strategic aspects of environmental destruction in the region. She speaks about political ecology in the Negev desert region of Israel/Palestine, and help us recognize what is 'unrecognized' this marginalized part of the region - an area populated by Jews and Bedouin by asking hard questions:

*How are "environmentally-conscious" development projects to remap the blueprint of the Israel's "Last Frontier" irreversibly impacting landscape and ancient desert cultures?

*What can we do to catalyze and steward a healthy and sustainable connection with the Land, and all of its people?