Latest from MAOF: Seminars for Civil Society Leadership

The Maof seminars have played an important role in strengthening and enhancing the Israeli environmental movement, establishing the Heschel Center's key function as a facilitator and catalyst for effective examination and formulation of ideas, goals and strategy.  Maof has been an extremely powerful and cost-effective strategic tool for the Israeli environmental movement, and its goals have been constantly reevaluated since its inception more than a decade ago.  We are planning two 2-day seminars in Fall 2009 and Winter 2010.  The conferences will follow from two different models of prior Maof conferences – one of leadership: to continue the strategic thinking seminar of the environmental movement; one of outreach: for key community sustainability advocates who currently work independent of any larger organizational agenda.

Outreach to Local Sustainability Advocates  
Preparations for the Heschel Center 10th anniversary event at the Tel Aviv Port in December 2008, and our development of the Green Change network made us aware of the large number of activists not affiliated with traditional environmental organizations.    Many of them are part of local networks of activity – environmental education, community gardens, Jewish-ecological communities in towns and cities, alternative economic activities such as used-goods exchanges and local bartering. We would like to hold a two-day Maof workshop aimed at identifying key networkers in these communities, deepening their understanding of sustainability, and no less importantly, understanding their needs and strategizing together as to how to strengthen their activities, both locally and nationally. 

Senior Leadership Seminar
The environmental movement has had a rather remarkable success record over the past decade, with organizations becoming more and more professional, public awareness growing, and heightened political effectiveness. In the Senior Leadership Seminar, we expect to successfully bring together the leading figures in the movement -- to debate and establish forward looking thinking and consensus building.  The aim is to begin the process of creating a movement agenda for the coming years, building synergy between the individual organizational agendas, through effective examination and formulation of ideas, goals and strategy.
 

Between Health And The Environment	Creating An Environmental Groundshift In Local Politics	"Green Now" Campaign

About MAOF:

The Maof Seminar Program provides a platform for free-flowing exchange and inter-organizational networking. We strive to use these three-day meetings to develop new ideas, a network of leaders, and a joint agenda for social-environmental organizations in Israel.

The Maof seminars have played an important role in strengthening and enhancing the Israeli environmental movement and establishing the Heschel Center's key function as a facilitator and catalyst for effective examination and formulation of ideas, goals and strategy. Both the Heschel Center and the environment movement as a whole have developed and matured a great deal since the first annual Maof seminar for senior staff of environmental NGOs in 1998. 

The seventh Maof in 2005 returned to the original concept of a summit meeting for CEOs of environmental NGOs and, like its predecessor in 1998 marked a turning-point in the development of the Israeli environmental movement.

The eighth Maof used this basis to expand the discourse to include social issues NGOs and created the stimulus for creation of a joint social-environmental agenda.

The ninth Maof (May 2007) focused on health and the environment and introduced health professionals and NGOs for the first time to issues of sustainability and the connection between public health and the environment Linking them with environmental NGOs the conference created alliances for action reflected in a number of joint workgroups.

The tenth Maof (2008) focused on the creation of a common, agreed agenda of the environmental movement in the lead-up to the 2008 municipal elections forming the basis of the joint campaigns to promote this agenda.

The Maof Seminar is made possible through the generous support of The Green Environment Fund.