Current funding disparities between Arab and Jewish school systems are partly to blame for the increases in violence as it creates a status quo that leads to harm at home and in Arab schools.
The crowdfunding campaign I designed was about raising awareness of apathy toward violence in Arab society and intended to fill a gap by redirecting attention to a youth-centric documentary film project addressing the fractures among Arab communities in Israel.
Raising awareness through crowdfunding.
It was clear from the start that the crowdfunding project required a clear call to action. My focus for the campaign centered on addressing the present landscape – an environment in which violence is normalized through fear.
Dark tourism is a growing industry in Israel. One company promotes an opportunity to learn to combat an Arab terrorist threat. These tactics are used to stoke fear both globally and domestically in Israeli society.
For instance, Jewish children are routinely exposed to heavy-handed demonstrations of fighting violence by the Israeli police force. The school-aged children believe that such violent practices should be considered differently depending on whether the attacks are directed against Jewish populations or Arab communities.
This culture of violence contributes to an untenable atmosphere in Israel that leaves Arab communities vulnerable. A core tenet of Baladna’s work is about bringing voice to Arab youth.
The documentary crowdfunding campaign places Arab youth squarely at the center of this work, filming, editing, planning, and implementing a project to bring about change through a platform to engage community members.
Crowdfunding change for an American audience
Initially, I set out to design a project that would motivate Western audiences. I intended to connect the crowdfunding campaign to Americans by discussing current examples of structural violence in Israel and examples from the United States’ checkered past. Racism is a blight not confined to any one country.
By reminding Americans of the damaging effects of inequitable treatment, I hoped to recruit Americans’ support to aid Arab youth in Israel through a positive campaign to bring about change.
For the crowdfunding campaign to be persuasive, I needed more than a written message (see the full written message below). Several crowdfunding tutorials suggest that incorporating a video (included below) with a written message offers stronger appeal. I discovered royalty-free music on the Internet and used iMovie to splice together images to illustrate the urgency of upending the status quo.
My hope was to create a promotional video that didn’t just play off feelings of dread with graphic imagery; instead, I wanted to incorporate positive elements of Baladna’s work through a classic storyline model (discussed in the last post).
The promotional crowdfunding video begins with Israel’s present context (discussed above) and transitions to a graph illustrating the Coverage and Scope of Domestic Violence Laws by Percentage of Economies in the Region (pictured left). The figure highlights a clear disparity in the Middle East.
The video montage cycles through a series of images of protests and ends with examples of Baladna’s partnerships with community members. For marketing purposes, I planned to film short clips using former students from past programs and incorporate a video message from Baladna’s director to the importance of youth activism.
The Big Picture
The crowdfunding documentary was the first project to raise awareness about the epidemic of violence in Arab communities. It was meant to build momentum for communitywide action by working up to a gala event that would raise funds to support Arab youth. The project’s theme brought together all of the elements of Baladna’s mission by calling for people to Stand up for Education by Stamping down Violence.
[embeddoc url=”https://blogs.uoregon.edu/ubiscus/files/2017/11/Working-paper_violence-in-Arab-society-p3wkkn.docx” download=”all” viewer=”microsoft” ]
