30 days to lift-off, preparations at Rakia are reaching their climax

Last week (22.2.22), the Big Dream project was introduced at the Peres Center for Peace and in another 11 cities around the world, including New York, London, Warsaw and Tokyo.

The Big Dream Project, created by the Dreame Organization, the Peres Center for Peace and Innovation, the Ramon Foundation and others, has this past year collected approximately 50,000 dream stories from around the world, which deal with the future of the universe until 2030. Inspired by those dreams, 50 artists joined forces to create a collective video art work, which is going to be launched into space with me as part of the Rakia mission. The artwork comes with an interactive map, enabling viewers to view the dreams in real-time, so that the moment the Space Station will be above India, for instance, the India dreams will be illuminated.

Just like the Rakia Mission, which is a patchwork comprised of many dreams. Dreams from teachers, scientists, artists, girls and boys, and the work of a talented team that has been working day and night to weave the different dreams together, transforming them into a work plan for ten chock-full days in space, in the Space Station’s laboratories and through communication from there with students and scientists on Earth.

If you take a look at most of the contents in the dreams, the combined ideas spell out peace. Boys and girls, men and women, human beings yearning for the very same thing: peace. Calm. Security. To live together in a world that’s good to live in. Whether you’re living in a conflict zone, or in a tranquil part of the world. The fact that this yearning transcends our earthly frontiers and even penetrates space, is truly awe-inspiring.

The project reminds us that the dream is the first step in the long process of planning and execution. Without a dream there is no accomplishment.

Transforming dreams into works of art:

Lilly Ben Ami, General Manager of the Michal Sela Forum, dreams that we have developed a vaccine and we have won. Today there are zero murders per year. Murders of women in domestic violence and family violence - has been eradicated.

Ahiah Klein, a paralympic rower, who was severely injured by an IED and lost his eyesight in combat, dreams that all men will be free and independent.

Hadir Ghouti, who established the Kulna bilingual kindergartens and schools in Jaffa, dreams that all of Jaffa’s Arab children will receive innovative, challenging, mind-broadening and respectful educations in whichever institution they choose. That the picture girls draw for their future extends beyond marriage and parenthood. That Arab youth will integrate in Israeli society while retaining the richness of their Arabic language and culture.

Ammal Khalili (16.5) of Jaffa and a student at the Terra Santa School, dreams of becoming a teacher and educating the next generation to be more tolerant one of the other.

Vittal Singer, a paralympic athlete in the Israeli wheelchair Latin dance team, who is a social entrepreneur focusing on advancing equal opportunity and accessibility, dreams of an accessible world, an egalitarian and more accepting world.

Liraz Cherki, an Israeli actress and singer, dreams of visiting and performing in Iran, her parents’ birthplace.

Molkan Fanta (18), a conscript soldier from Jaffa, dreams of setting up a new index - an index which measures people not by how much money they have in the bank, but rather by the quality of their deeds.

This artwork is the work of Ophir Harlap Rivlin and Sharona Karni Cohen, who were in charge of collecting and screening the works, which were collected from around the world, and working them into the final output. Thanks to them, and to all the dear people that have joined in on the Big Dream and equipped me with a collection of fabulous drawings of dreams, which I am going to carry with me on my journey to space, in the hope that together we’ll be able to get lots of dreams off the ground, and perhaps even contribute toward making some of them come true.

Yours,

Eytan