KKL-JNF for Israel’s Periphery: Helping to Beautify Private Property in Urban Neighborhoods
KKL-JNF, together with the Ministry of Environmental Protection, has initiated a project to improve privately owned open spaces in peripheral regions. Yeruham is the first city in the Negev to adopt the project.
17/6/2018
Branza
Danny Beller
KKL-JNF, together with the Ministry of Environmental Protection, has initiated a project to beautify cities by caring for privately owned open spaces. The municipal authorities that won the Call for Proposal issued by the Ministry of Environmental Protection participated this week in learning tours at the Yeruham local council, which volunteered to be the first council to host this project.
Dozens of municipal representatives from Israel’s north and south came this week to Yeruham to launch the privately owned open spaces improvement project. The representatives of the authorities met for a day of learning about privately owned open spaces as part of a national project led by KKL-JNF and the Ministry of Environmental Protection.
Representatives from Yeruham, Lod, Netanya, Ramle, Dimona and other cities visited neighborhoods in Yeruham and learned about the various methods of beautifying privately owned open spaces, and also saw the difficulty involved in protecting shared gardens of high-rise buildings. Yeruham was the first council to volunteer to host the representatives of the councils. In the future, the representatives will also visit other local authorities that are participating in the project.
The topic of privately owned open spaces in peripheral regions is a familiar problem, since there is sometimes no building committees in older buildings and the yards of the apartment buildings are not cared for. They often become a security hazard that can cause fires or hygienic problems and dirt.
The authorities that won the Call for Proposal will receive funding from KKL-JNF and the organization will accompany them in everything related to beautifying privately owned open spaces and caring for shared yards and gardens.
KKL-JNF Southern Region Deputy Director and Director of the KKL-JNF Engineering Department Eran Etner represented KKL-JNF during the visit and said: “This is a social-environmental project that connects the public to its immediate vicinity. This is an important project that KKL-JNF is financing as part of the values it promotes and its goal of strengthening peripheral regions. As a green organization, KKL-JNF obviously leads many green projects. I spoke about KKL-JNF’s values and the importance of this project for us with the representatives of the authorities, and we are glad to be leading this project together with the Ministry of Environmental Protection.”
Sharon Plotnitsky, Head of the Ministry of Environmental Protection’s Local Government Division: “This is an especially exciting environmental project. It comes to the homes of the local residents and changes the reality of their daily lives. This project is a practical means of narrowing the social gaps in Israel’s social periphery. The joint learning meeting initiated by the Ministry for the authorities participating in the project enables them to learn from each other’s experience, and to be able to cope more easily with the implementation of the project.”