Vinay Nagaraju describes the two months he spent carrying out a strategic consulting project with Centre for Jewish-Arab education in Israel.

As I was peering through the paintings of Picasso and Monet at the Tate Modern in London, I couldn’t help but notice that the paintings had no white spaces. It’s just how these painters were; they made use of every white space on their canvas. This made me think that social entrepreneurs can be likened to painters. They too look for white spaces that can be filled with colours.

In summer 2009, Jessica Lax, Aaron Pereira and I found just such a white space, when we spent two months based in Israel, working with Hand in Hand, a non-governmental organisation whose vision is to create opportunities for Jewish and Arab children to interact.

Hand in Hand (HIH) has its national office in Jerusalem and operates four schools across Israel in Jerusalem, Galilee, Wadi Ara and Beersheva. Over 1,000 children are enrolled across these four schools. Under the HIH model, each school is co-directed by Arab and Jewish co-principals, has equal numbers of Jewish and Arab children, and each classroom is co-taught by Jewish and Arab teachers in Hebrew and Arabic.

By teaching in the two official languages of Hebrew and Arabic in an integrated multicultural environment, HIH schools have helped create a space where Jewish and Arab cultures and narratives co-exist. The schools have helped to build a community of teachers, parents and neighbours that work and live together and are engaged in constructive dialogue, even at times of extreme political volatility.

The HIH initiative is a long-term experiment that is evolving, and its various stakeholders, including teachers, parents and students, perceive the organisation and its future differently. Our project was to provide an overview of the strategic alternatives facing the NGO to help inform the choices it will make in future.

To start with, we performed a series of in-depth interviews with stakeholders past and present to elicit their views on HIH’s work, the value created by the organisation, and how they believe the organisation should evolve. Interviews were also conducted with people in other organisations working on peaceful coexistence between Arabs and Jews in order to determine how HIH fits into the landscape.

We analysed the feedback thematically and we sketched a future strategy that places HIH at the intersection of the organisation’s core competency, available resources, and strong positioning within the coexistence movement. Drawing upon the various MBA courses that we had taken, from strategy, marketing, and finance, to social entrepreneurship, and technology and innovation strategy, we developed scenarios to illustrate the different directions the organisation could take.

These included: academic excellence, co-existence and scaling up and three areas of focus in each of the scenarios. The fourth aspect of HIH’s mission which warrants attention is bilingualism which is a key element of all the scenarios.

The report was well received by HIH. “The team laid out a well considered set of options for the organisation,” says Sam Shube, Executive Director of Hand in Hand in Jerusalem. “The work has both breadth and depth. It is concise and sophisticated, enabling people from different perspectives to understand their insights and identify with the questions they raise. They have provided invaluable service to our organisation that will serve us well in the years ahead.”

The two months we spent in the Middle East were enriching not just because of the unique experience that the project offered but because of the opportunity we had to travel around Israel and Palestine. From the ancient city of Jerusalem to the Golan Heights, from the modern metropolis of Tel Aviv to the Dead Sea, from the pious city of Bethlehem to the Palestinian capital of Ramallah, I was not just fascinated, but often left disconcerted by the complex tapestry of human identities and the picture I received of different histories, and the problems they have left behind.

In a land where Jesus, Mohammed and Moses walked, I only wish that there were more white spaces are created  in human hearts and minds to be filled by the love and peace that they taught.

www.handinhand12.org