A nonprofit organization based in Jerusalem teaches Hebrew to Arab women who are constrained socially and professionally by language barriers.
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Established in 2015, "Women Speaking Hebrew" (Lissan) provides language tools to population groups in Jerusalem to increase accessibility to the city's most spoken languages - Hebrew and Arabic.
According to WSH head Talia Vekshtein, men have more opportunities to learn Hebrew through their jobs while women are left behind, unable to be self-reliant.
While there is an increasing number of programs dedicated to teaching Hebrew to Arabs from east Jerusalem, Vekshtein suggested the NGO has a critical social impact on participating women.
"This program was designed to provide a platform for women… to learn Hebrew that is useful and necessary for daily life," Vekshtein said.
Abeer Tawell, a Palestinian woman enrolled in the program, told Ynetnews that she wants to gain a certain level of independence.
"I want to depend on myself since I am very capable," Taweel told Ynet.
"I am a woman who does not like it when someone speaks on her behalf. I like to speak for myself; I want to express my own feelings using my own words."
The unemployment rate among Arab women in Jerusalem was at nine percent in 2016, according to the Jerusalem Institute for Policy Research.
Research by Lissan indicated that the biggest barrier for such women is language, Ynetnews reported.
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"Women have greater awareness about the consequences they suffer due to lacking basic knowledge of the language," said Rifa Jabseheh, an employment coordinator of the Jerusalem Municipality.
"The women I work with have a variety of needs that have pushed them to want to learn the language."
i24NEWS contributed to this report.
