ANU - Big Changes are made together!
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ANU-Making Change is a nonpartisan, non-profit organization established in 2014 following a merger between three leading social change organizations - Agenda, Hasdera, and Uru. As such, ANU’s inception reflects the power of collaborative action. ANU’s mission is to promote a vibrant and influential civil society that works together towards a more inclusive and equitable Israel. Our work is guided by our core values of social justice, economic fairness, shared society, gender equality and environmental sustainability.
ANU's Communities
We seek to (1) provide tools to social activists so they may expand their reach and effectively lead change for the collective benefit; (2) cultivate connections between diverse entities, fostering positive dialogue and facilitating cross-sector collaboration to advance shared goals; and (3) amplify Israel’s diverse voices, promoting equality and tolerance through fair representation
Mediterranean Sea People
The Mediterranean Sea People, launched in 2018, are working to promote marine protected areas in Israel. ANU has now coordinated, in collaboration with 7 leading Israeli environmental organizations, the establishment of a network of marine communities that put marine protection at the center of their activities. Thanks to the efforts of this coalition, right before Rosh Hashanah 2019, the Minister of Finance signed a commitment to increase the area of Israel’s marine protected areas by ten-fold.
The Coalition for Early Childhood
The Coalition for Early Childhood Education is working for better conditions, access, and regulations of day care facilities for the half million children under the age of three in Israel. In October of 2018, after three years of national campaigning and joint efforts, the Supervision of Day Care for Toddlers Law passed in the Knesset. The Coalition is continuing to improve the specific legislation associated with this law and advocate for the overall transfer of responsibility for day care centers in Israel from the Ministry of Labor and Welfare to the Ministry of Education.
Transparency Coalition
ANU’s Transparency Coalition was established in 2018 and relaunched in 2019. It has rebuilt itself into a force of 16 like-minded organizations, including the prominent Arab-led nonprofit Lawyers for Good Governance. The Coalition has three main goals:
(1) increase public awareness of transparency as a tool to promote good governance.
(2) increase transparency in Israel’s local authorities.
(3) increase transparency in the Knesset.
We believe that increasing transparency and access to information, including income and expenses, and conflicts of interest, is crucial to increasing the public’s trust in the system, hold government officials accountable and tackle corruption.
The Healthcare Coalition
While a select portion of the country’s residents can afford to supplement their healthcare with private services, the majority, especially those living in the geographic and socioeconomic periphery, are completely reliant on the public system, which was pushed to the brink by the corona crisis. With this in mind, ANU has established a Healthcare Coalition to tackle the range of problems existent within Israel’s healthcare system. Among other goals, the coalition seeks to contain doctor ‘brain drain’ occurring in Israel. While about 50% of Israeli doctors will retire in the next 15 years, the incentive structure currently in place is not maximizing Israel’s capacity to produce high quality doctors that will stay in Israel. ANU is mobilizing the Israeli public through this coalition to ensure that Israel’s healthcare system remains self-sustaining.
Promoting Social Unity
ANU's Arab Society Coordinator supports
the organization in mainstreaming within ANU the priorities of Arab
communities across Israel and helping bring ANU’s activist tools to a
wider portion of the Israeli public. Our coordinator has already built
partnerships with relevant Arab civil society organizations, translated
original content for publication within popular Arab language media
sources, and translated ANU’s website, social media pages and othermaterials to make our platform more accessible to Arab activists and civil society organizations empowering more of the Israeli citizenry to bring about positive change in the country for all. Furthermore, ANU’s Toplist program has continued to increase diversity in Israel’s mainstream Hebrew language media sources, providing more opportunities for Ethiopian-Israeli content experts to be featured on television, in the written press and on the radio. In 2020, ANU trained 75 Ethiopian-Israeli content experts in effective media communication with workshops on writing opinion columns and conducting television interviews. ANU is changing the face of Israel’s mainstream media, making it more representative of our diverse society to ultimately promote cooperation and understanding throughout Israel.
The Fair and Direct Employment Coalition
The COVID-19 pandemic has intensified Israel’s identity-based employment disparities and widened Israel’s gender wage gap. One of ANU’s priorities for 2021 is our Direct and Fair Employment Coalition focusing on promoting family friendly policies especially for marginalized members of the Israeli workforce. With a 47% participation rate in the economy, women nevertheless account for more than 57% of the newly unemployed. Furthermore, most unemployed women will only be able to return to the labor market once their children return to school completely. Arab women in Israel have been most adversely affected by the pandemic, as they are more likely to be earning minimum wage or to be employed part time, and thus do not receive sufficient compensation for job loss. The Israeli government is also considering lowering the minimum wage, a move that would have the most significant impact on those who have already been weakened by the economic effects of the pandemic. There are concerns that these changes will force many women to face incredible challenges when attempting to reintegrate into the labor market. ANU’s Direct and Fair Employment Coalition is focused on remedying these ills with a variety of policy reforms.
