JULY 2026
First assembly
The Arab Civic Council in Haifa held its founding assembly; around 40 residents took part.
A COMMUNITY-ROOTED CIVIC INSTITUTION · HAIFA · SINCE 1987
We don't speak for the community. We build what lets the community speak.
The Social Development Committee - Haifa is a Palestinian Arab, non-partisan community-organizing association based in Haifa. For nearly four decades, we have worked to organize and empower the Arab community of the city, building civic participation, community leadership, and the collective power to secure full rights and an equitable share of services and resources.
What sets our approach apart is what it refuses to do: SDC does not speak for the community. We build the conditions, the tools, and the platforms through which the community organizes itself, sets its own priorities, and acts.
01 · WHO WE ARE
Rooted, serious, accountable.
Our roots
SDC has been part of Haifa's Arab civic life for nearly four decades, founded in 1987. Across changing and often difficult political conditions, we have remained a central address for Arab residents in Haifa seeking civic support, coordination, and community-based action.
What we believe
Equality
المساواة
Equity
العدل
Social solidarity
التكافل الاجتماعي
Shared living
العيش المشترك
"What if the community organized itself, and we just provided the infrastructure?"
Governance & accountability
SDC is a non-partisan registered association (reg. 580096311), governed by its Articles of Association and holding a valid Certificate of Proper Management. Our finances are independently audited every year. Transparency isn't a formality for us: making our work legible is part of how the community holds itself, and the institutions around it, accountable.
Non-partisanRegistered associationAudited annuallyCertificate of Proper Management
02 · HOW WE WORK
The model: structured community power.
OUR STRATEGY 2026–2029
(Re)Imagining Haifa: From Resilience to Transformation
For years, civic life for the Palestinian Arab community in Haifa has meant reacting to one pressure after another. This strategy marks a deliberate shift: from ad-hoc response to structured community power, durable civic infrastructure the community owns.
The spine: the Arab Civic Council. A community-rooted body that turns residents' priorities into coordinated civic action and sustained influence on the municipality. It is not another project. It is the infrastructure that connects everything into one system. SDC enables; the community organizes and decides.
Download our strategy (PDF)BUILT IN, NOT BOLTED ON
Women's leadership as governance
Youth civic agency
Education justice
Running through the Council, not alongside it.
The connecting infrastructure: the Arab Civic Council
The spine of our model: an open community civic space bringing together Arab residents of Haifa across ages, backgrounds, and fields, on one premise: real influence begins with shared knowledge, an honest reading of reality, and organizing the community's existing energies into sustained collective action.
Reads the reality through peopleMaps the issues across neighborhoodsTurns priorities into time-bound casesOpens a municipal influence pathway
Women's leadership as governance
Women lead across community issues, housing, education, services, safety, not in a separate "women's track." It's built into how the Council governs and decides.
Youth civic agency
Young people are civic actors in the present, not leaders-in-waiting. SDC provides the framework; youth design and lead their own initiatives.
Education justice
We turn evidence-based education priorities into advocacy and engagement, connecting parents, educators, and youth to the decisions that shape local schooling.
The backbone: evidence and learning
Documentation, monitoring, reflection, and learning run through everything we do. It's how we make our impact legible and turn lived experience into knowledge others can use. SDC's role is to enable: convening, facilitation, infrastructure, learning, capacity-building. SDC is not "the Council." We build the conditions; the community decides.
03 · THE EVIDENCE
How we know it's working.
SDC is evidence-led: we document what we do, follow up on it, and make the results legible, to the community and to our partners. Monitoring, evaluation, accountability, and learning are built into how we operate, not added at the end.
Track record: the foundation we build on
Recent work, consistent with the strategy, that shows what organizing with this community produces:
Madinati
A five-city Arab civic coalition (Haifa, Acre, Jaffa, Lod, Ramla) building cross-city solidarity and shared civic practice.
Keep Haifa Shared
A shared-society coalition in Haifa, independently evaluated.
Community planning
Resident-led planning work in Wadi Nisnas.
Youth civic agency
Youth-led initiatives, designed and run by young people.
Where we are now
Our 2026–2029 model is launching. The Arab Civic Council in Haifa held its founding assembly in July 2026: around 40 residents took part, and many more asked to join but couldn't attend. From there, impact accumulates as the Council takes on time-bound cases and follows them through. We publish outcomes as they happen, rather than claiming them in advance.
The Council in action: cases as they run
Each case is documented here as it runs: the priority, what was done, the follow-up, and the outcome.
Knowledge & replication
We turn experience into knowledge others can use, documenting the model (Council formation, issue mapping, case selection, women's leadership integration, education tools) as a practical guide other mixed-city actors can adapt.