PROFIT-NON-PROFIT

The 2007 edition of the International Prize Calouste Gulbenkian will go for HAND IN HAND: CENTER FOR JEWISH-ARAB EDUCATION.

Hand in Hand, located in Jerusalem, Israel, is a non-governmental, non-profit organization established in 1997 to promote a new educational model of bilingual and multicultural education where Jewish and Arab children can learn together as equals. It operates three Arab-Jewish integrated bilingual schools having grown from 50 pupils the first year to over 750 today. The schools have a unique curriculum emphasizing dialogue, appreciation of each other’s culture, and co-existence. Each school has an Arab and Jewish co-principal, each class of equal numbers of Jewish and Arab pupils is co-taught by Arab and Jewish teachers.

The Calouste Gulbenkian International Prize, worth €100,000, distinguishes an individual or institution whose thoughts or actions make a decisive contribution to and have significant impact on understanding, defending or fostering the universal values of the human condition, with particular reference to the Respect for difference and inter-cultural, inter-ethnic and inter-religious dialogue.

The Jury of the Prize was chaired by Jorge Sampaio, former President of Portugal and UN High Representative for the Alliance of Civilizations, who was helped by HRH Prince Hassan bin Talal, Crown Prince to the Hashemite Throne of Jordan, Fernando Henrique Cardoso, former President of Brasil, Vartan Gregorian, President of the Carnegie Corporation of New York, Bronislaw Geremek, Member of the European Parliament, and José Gomes Canotilho, distinguished Law Professor at Coimbra University.