In the Negev Desert, Bedouin and Jewish people live in close proximity to one another yet the separate communities rarely interact. Their knowledge of each other is often based on assumptions, stereotypes, and prejudices. This results in an atmosphere of apprehension, suspicion, mistrust between communities and very little cooperative contact between Bedouin and Jews. The youth are most heavily impacted by this segregation and almost never have the opportunity to interact with one another; they live in separate neighborhoods and villages, attend separate schools, and overall have no opportunity for social interaction.

One of the primary goals of A New Dawn in the Negev is to bring an end to this segregation and our Mifgashim program works to counter segregation from two angles, face to face interaction and bridging the language barrier. We host weekly meetings where youth from Kibbutz Shoval travel to Rahat each week to meet with their Bedouin peers and teach them practical Hebrew they will need for school and work in Israel.