The Sapir Regional Center was founded in 1978 as a community settlement intended to provide as a service center for the agricultural communities in the Central Arava and a home for non-agricultural residents of the region.
The flourishing community now has 1000 families and is home to the Central Arava Regional Council, Shitim – the regional comprehensive school and various small business ventures. Residents include teachers and other school staff, doctors, agriculture extension service workers and other people who are seeking a peaceful healthy environment for themselves and their families.
Sapir Regional Center is a hub of education for the Central Arava region.
The Arava International Centre for Agriculture Training (AICAT) offers training in sophisticated arid land agriculture to students from developing countries. The training centre is internationally renowned for its course in agriculture, and some 1,000 students from eight Asian countries study at the Sapir Regional Centre campus. AICAT provides an invaluable contribution to developing countries and their students as well as additional employment opportunities for local residents and extra working hands for the local agricultural industry. KKL-JNF is participating in a project to build new dormitories for the program's students.
Also located at Sapir is the Shittim Elementary School, which has 429 students from first grade to sixth, and is the only elementary school in the region. In January 2015, JNF Australia and the Pratt Foundation dedicated the Arava Children's Environmental Centre, where children can experience innovative and hands-on learning about science, the environment, ecology, and sustainable agriculture.