Nofar Drukman has joined the Encompass team as our new Israeli coordinator. Welcome to the team Nofar! We caught up with Nofar to find out a little more about her background and motivations, as well as how she hopes to use her experience to build up the Encompass community in Israel:

“My name is Nofar and I’m a 33 years old Israeli living in Tel Aviv. I’m a mother, a storyteller, a social entrepreneur and a changemaker. I started my career as a social entrepreneur when I was 16 years old. When I started my first social initiative, I didn’t know that there was such a thing as a ‘social entrepreneur’. I just saw a problem and thought let’s face this problem and solve it somehow. I love this work because it allows me to merge my passions with social activities that relate to other people, such as youth work and working to empower women. 

For the last four years, I have been working on a social business enterprise called Karaoke Talkie which I co-founded with a friend. The aim of the project is to empower women to speak up, to feel comfortable to take the stage by using storytelling and improvisation tools. I really saw the need for this kind of initiative when I was coaching entrepreneurs on how to pitch their ideas. While there were loads of great female entrepreneurs, at pitching events the vast majority of entrepreneurs presenting were male. I began to ask the women why they weren’t taking to the stage. They said it was because they didn’t have enough experience and they were too afraid. This is where the idea for Karaoke Talkie came about. 

Alongside Karaoke Talkie, I have also been involved in a number of conflict resolution projects, working with Israelis and Palestinians. Around six years ago, I attended a changemaker’s exchange summit. I was speaking to one of the other attendees and he told me he was a social entrepreneur from Gaza. I was so amazed to hear that, I hadn’t realised there were social entrepreneurs living in Gaza. It was actually the first time I’d ever really met a Palestinian. It made me realise the value of bringing people together to share their stories, how these exchanges can be used to bridge a gap between ‘two sides’. Once you get to know someone, you can begin to relate to them, they are no longer ‘Palestinians’ or ‘Israelis’, they are people you know, your friends. From this point on, I started to attend any project or event that would help me to understand the topic deeper and give me an opportunity to meet and collaborate with Palestinians. A couple of my friends also became interested and asked me to inform them when seminars were taking place. I decided to open a Whatsapp group and post upcoming events on there. I started to publicise the group a bit and it started to grow. Today I have two Whatsapp groups with about 470 people in them and have sign-posted members to more than 150 opportunities in two years. It’s a really diverse group with a variety of different ages and nationalities, including Palestinians. 

Israelis and Palestinians must work together to create peace, there is no other way. Some people in my country don’t have citizenship at all, they don’t have the same human rights as I have. I can’t ignore that. I think what makes Encompass’ programmes so special is that they bring together people that wouldn’t usually take part in conflict resolution and dialogue programmes. Often, participants have never met someone from the ‘other side’. They don’t know anyone from Israel or Palestine, they can’t relate to them. I think this meeting is so important for creating bridges. When you bring people together, it’s not about the politicians, it’s about the people and how we can create the change together. 

I’m really looking forward to meeting Encompass’ Israeli alumni to hear their thoughts on the Journey of Understanding (JoU) and to find out what they have been up to since taking part in the programme. I have two meetings planned with them in December. The first will be a ‘Friday night dinner on Saturday’, a Kiddush dinner on Saturday so that religious alumni are also able to attend, and the second will be a seminar that will take place in Jordan. I’m also excited to see how the JoU works in practice and to work with Encompass’ Palestinian Coordinator Karen, and the other facilitators. I think the JoU is a great opportunity to bring new people to the conflict resolution arena and I’m looking forward to being part of it!”