Matei Asher regional council security staff at new headquarters    
An 800,000-shekel emergency response center, the first of its kind, was recently established in the Western Galilee region of Matei Asher. Funding for this unique project was contributed by communities in partnership with the Western Galilee, in the framework of the Jewish Agency's "Partnership 2000" project. The primary contributor for this project was the community of Indianapolis, Indiana, in the United States.

The new center was specially requested by the Matei Asher regional council to improve security in the region. Among other activities, it will coordinate security for educational institutions, roving security watch for agricultural areas, and response to any security-related problem 24 hours a day. The building, constructed according to exacting Home Front Command standards, includes advanced computer and communication networks which keep pace in real-time with the security forces – IDF, MDA, firefighters and police. Mr. Dimon Raz, the Jewish Agency's regional manager for Western Galilee, reports that other regions have expressed great interest in learning about the new emergency center, so as to use it as a model for their own planning.

"The center was built with the primary purpose of addressing the security needs of this region, which is on the northern border and has fully half of its communities designated as 'confrontation-line' towns," said Yehuda Shavit, the president of the Matei Asher regional council. "We need to be able to maintain communication with the different security arms, such as the IDF, the police and the local security coordinators of the various townships. Of course it is our earnest hope that the system will be needed mainly for municipal civil emergencies and not because of any military or terrorist threat."

The new emergency response center is only the latest in a series of security-related investments in the Western Galilee region made by Jewish Agency Partnership 2000 communities. To date, these total over 4.5 million shekels, donated through the Agency's emergency fundraising drive. Other projects funded in this way include equipment for the emergency room of a Western Galilee hospital, a community police point in Acco, tuition support for Western Galilee college students who participate in campus security patrolling, and several others.