Better Together

I love "Better Together" .... I think it's one of the most innovative and impactful programs in Israel today.

It improves the lives of at-risk youth, and builds up the capabilites of communities and professionals around them. When you go see this program, you see the incredible changes that we can make in a neighborhood using partnerships between residents and service-providers.

We have some amazing partners who have helped make Better Together a success in over 30 locations around Israel. Because of their commitment, and our shared values, there are tens of thousands of Israelis whose lives are made better every day.

Mission to Minsk … and more

Lovely article in the Jewish Voice of Rhode Island By Susan Leach DeBlasio

Friday, 16 August 2013 20:27

PROVIDENCE – Eddie Bruckner, Jewish Alliance of Greater Rhode Island’s vice  president for financial resource development, and I experienced Minsk and Israel  on a Jewish Federations of North America mission with 96 other lay and professional  leaders from across the United States and Canada. Missions are peripatetic,  transformational summer camps for grownups. There’s no sleep, only days and  nights filled with inspiration, education, training, and bonding with our counterparts  and instant new friends. The mid-July mission was no different. In Minsk and Israel, we visited programs sponsored by the American Jewish Joint  Distribution Committee (JDC), the Jewish Agency for Israel (JAFI) and World ORT.  Each of these organizations, collaborating on a continuum of services with the dollars  we (and other donor organizations) raise, ensures the renewal and vibrancy of Jewish  life all over the world. Today, about 25,000 Jews live in Minsk, the capital of Belarus (birthplace of Marc  Chagall, Shimon Peres and Meyer Lansky), the first country invaded by the Nazis  and the last liberated by the Allied Forces. The Nazis slaughtered 80-90 percent of the  Jews in Belarus, and the Communists imposed official anti-Semitism for decades after  the war, obliterating entire generations of Jewish knowledge, tradition and communal  life. We began our visit to Minsk by exploring Yama (“pit”), a deep depression carved  out of the earth where 5,000 Jews rounded up from the ghetto were shot to death in  just one day. There we recited Kaddish and heard from several young leaders of the  Jewish community as well as its head, Leonid Levin, an architect and sculptor.   Descending by the stairway into the pit is his statue of 27 soulful figures about to die.   In his remarks, Levin reminded us, “Each of us could have been in that line.”   Transporting us from those tragic moments in the pit, where “the ashes of our people”  are buried, he summed up the successful rebirth of Jewish life in Minsk with his  dramatic conclusion, “We are few, but we are Jews.” Jewish life flourishes in Minsk today. There are synagogues, schools, summer camps,  young leader and cultural enrichment programs, Shabbatons, family retreats,  newspapers and kosher food, with a robust infrastructure of Jewish social service,  cultural and philanthropic organizations.  The Minsk Jewish Campus, a thriving  social, cultural and educational center, is the central address for Jewish communal  activity.   JDC, JAFI and World ORT are partners in their efforts to promote and  sustain Jewish identity and care for the community’s needy and vulnerable. Together,  with support from the Alliance, they are saving a generation of young Jewish adults  who would otherwise assimilate into obscurity. JDC’s Hesed Rachamim Welfare Center provides medicine, food, home care,  cultural life, companionship, winter relief and home repairs for the last generation  of elderly victims of the Nazis and life under a Communist regime. As Dov Ben-Shimon of the JDC explained, “Jews don’t need our help getting out of  any country in the world today. They need our help in staying.” Their needs arise from hunger and thirst – hunger for food and sustenance, thirst for  Jewish community and belonging.  Eddie and I shopped for groceries for 86-year old  Tatiana, who lives alone in a tiny room of a communal apartment. We had an  allotment from the JDC of 100,000 rubles ($11) to spend. We bought chicken, oil,  tea, kasha, bread and noodles.  We all contributed to add oatmeal, fruit, potatoes  and eggs. Astonishingly, many young people we met exploring and celebrating their Judaism  did not learn they were Jewish until they were into their teens.  Sometimes a  grandparent or aunt let them know, or they discovered old family papers or a  siddur (prayer book) in a shoebox in the attic.  Yoni Leifer went to shul for the  first time when he was 11.   After Jewish summer camps and Hebrew school, he made aliyah, and then after  serving in the Israeli army and attending university, he returned home to Minsk to  work for the JDC. In Volozyhn, we visited the world-renowned Volozhyn Yeshiva, the site of the  Second Zionist Congress and the “Harvard” of yeshivas, attracting the greatest  Jewish intellectuals of the time (from 1803 until 1939).  There, we met Vladimir  Levitskiy from Moscow and other Jewish young adults participating in an  “Expedition” program where they do community service projects across the former  Soviet Union and learn about their Jewish heritage.  Vladimir is 21 and first learned  he was Jewish three years ago.  Since then, he has been to Israel on Taglit-Birthright,  traveled all around the United States, participated in a number of cultural programs  sponsored by JDC and JAFI, and hopes to return to Israel on a MASA program.   Together we spent several hours cleaning a Jewish cemetery next to a monument  memorializing the mass grave of thousands of Jews killed by the Nazis. Recognizing that Jewish adolescents and young adults need multiple touch points in  their lives to concretize their Jewish identity, these agencies sponsor summer camps,  Birthright trips and Jewish schools, to create a long-term immersive experience in  Jewish life.  JAFI runs summer camps where children learn local Jewish history,  Jewish customs and practices. At one camp, I met Kseniye, 19 and a counselor, who  did not learn she was Jewish until she was 9 and had an opportunity to attend the  camp.  As they learn to engage young campers in the Jewish community, counselors  develop their own Jewish identities. In Israel, we traveled to Haifa, Afula, Jerusalem and other areas where programs  rescue children at risk, provide services to those in need and integrate immigrants,  including Ethiopians, into Israeli life.  At a World ORT science and math campus  focused on “program-based learning,” we launched rockets and enjoyed other  experiential learning opportunities with 14- and 15-year-old scientists. One personal highlight was a visit to a JDC-run father/son sports program in Afula.  Fathers and sons must commit to spend 90 minutes each week together with coaches,  counselors, and other father-son pairs. Together they practice and play soccer, but  what they really learn are social skills, teamwork, confidence, self-esteem and responsibility.  The program successfully strengthens the relationship between father  and son, and their lessons spill over into all other areas of their lives, generating  emotional wellbeing, family relationships and better school attendance and grades. The Alliance has been ensuring a vibrant Jewish community for nearly 70 years  both domestically and overseas. As the central address of Jewish philanthropy in  greater Rhode Island, the Alliance provides care for people in need and support to  Israel and collaborates to develop a strong Jewish community for the next generation. As the great Lubbavitcher Rebbe Schneerson cautioned, “If you see what needs to be  repaired and how to repair it, then you have found a piece of the world that God has  left for you to complete. But if you only see what is wrong and how ugly it is, then it is  yourself that needs repair.” I invite all of you to join the Alliance and me this year to help repair the piece of the  world left for us to complete. Susan Leach DeBlasio ( sdeblasio@apslaw.com) is vice chair for financial resource development of the Alliance. http://jvhri.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=4381:mission-to-minsk--and-more&catid=41:community&Itemid=62

From JDC-Israel to the White House

I love this story ... JDC-Ashalim has a terrific recipe book, and their recipes (in English) came through JDC supporters to the White House.

Farash Foundation JDC Strategic Partnership Mission to Israel April-May 2013

Etrog-sprays at the Machane Yehuda culinary tour

 Visit to Israel Air Force Base to see the JDC "Blue Dawn" program for Haredi (Orthodox) enlistment
Below: Independence Hall, Tel Aviv

Above: Arab Druze hospitality in Usifiyah
Left: overlooking Jerusalem
Below: explaining Jerusalem's history

 Above: at the Supreme Court, Jerusalem
Left: embarking on a culinary tour of Machane Yehuda
Below left: cheese tasting

Above and left and below: Better Together kindergarten, Kiryat Gat

 Left: preparing a dedication sign for Better Together Kiryat Gat
Below: with the mayor of Kiryat Gat, Aviram Dahari, ribbon cutting

 Above: Kiryat Gat Mayor Dahari fixes the mezuza to the new Better Together Center
Right: networks and webs of connections in Better Together BeerSheva

Above: JDC-Ashalim Nutrition program for Ethiopian-Israeli mothers in Beersheva, Yud-Aleph neighborhood
Right: Israel Air Force/JDC "Blue Dawn" program

We’re Better Together

Our main day of site visits was spent in Kiryat Gat and BeerSheva, visiting the two “Better Together” programs supported with the generosity of the Farash Foundation. 

Better Together isn’t really a ‘program.’ It’s more of a platform, bringing together all the different elements in a community – the municipality, the teachers, parents, activists and all those who care about strengthening the community. And in these neighborhoods (Nevi’im in Kiryat Gat, Yud-Aleph in BeerSheva) there's a huge need. Parents are scared to let their kids out at night, there aren’t any cultural or enrichment programs for youth.  

In Yud-Aleph there are over 50% immigrants in the neighborhood. That translates to weak civil society, and a lack of municipal services because there aren’t enough activists to lobby for those services.

But we kept coming back to an amazing sense of pride, a sense of change, in both these neighborhoods. In just the last year or two, since Better Together began, we’ve seen real change in the perceptions and orientations of the community.

People are starting to believe in change. They’re starting to understand that the Joint will help, but it’s up to them to lead. And this leadership is growing.

Early Childhood

The Farash Foundation continues its inspiring Strategic Partnership mission in Israel. Dr. Rami Sulimani, Director of JDC-Israel’s Ashalim (Youth Programs) Department, gave a riveting and moving presentation on the challenges of youth programs and Israel’s future.

“My vision,” he explains, “is to give every child an equal chance.”

It’s easy to say, but a lot more difficult to actually implement. Rami and his team spend over a year just on preparing the ground for an individual program.

Because if you want to make real, meaningful change in the lives of Israel’s children, you have to start at a very early age.

That’s how JDC-Israel started the PACT (Parents And Children Together) working with the Ethiopian-Israeli community, and the ECHAD (Early Childhood Achievement and Development) program for Arab-Israelis. Both programs emphasize early-childhood enrichment and educational support, while working with parents and the family environment. As each program becomes strong enough in its funding and structure, JDC phases out and lets local NGOs and partners run the programs by themselves.

PACT and ECHAD allowed us to form the bases for a massive cooperation and partnership with the Government of Israel called “New Beginnings,” an early childhood initiative in over a hundred locations in Israel, impacting the lives of tens of thousands of children. Every day.

Rami’s vision, the commitment of JDC-Israel, and the partnership with our funders and supporters, allows us to have collective, system-wide impact, helping tens of thousands of Israel’s children and youth on a daily basis. 

Better Together Ashkelon

Better Together improves services for children and youth in disadvantaged communities such as development towns on Israel's periphery and poor inner city neighborhoods, by maximizing local resources and forging partnerships between residents and service providers.  It improves existing services and creates new programs, ac companying children from birth to 18, morning till night, school to home. The program focuses include early childhood development and academic assistance and enrichment activities, while engaging parents, teachers and community leaders in strengthening communities.

Location: Matnas Shapira, Neve Alonim, Ashkelon

BT is in s even locations in the South today. Sivan is the brand-new (this week) BT Ashkelon coordinator. We do a tour of the neighborhood. Shapira is a large neighborhood in the ‘middle’ from a socioeconomic standpoint. 16,000 residents, including many FSU olim, Eth-Isrs, veteran elderly. The stronger younger families move up to Barnea. Elderly and weak stay in Neve Alonim. The streets are fairly clean (the municipality emphasizes street cleaning) but empty and neglected. This is the southernmost area of Ashkelon, which developed north. Vaknin was born here.

Outside the kindergarten it’s nearly all fathers, recognizably Ethiopian or FSU.

David is Matnas Director, he has a good reputation. January 2010 BT came to Ashkelon, there's been less vandalism, more pride in the neighborhood. You can see more energy here, more activity. The school next to the Matnas also improved its infrastructure. (BT doesn’t invest in physical infrastructure but it’s important to encourage and strengthen the local authority to do so; BT focuses on the programmatic and social ele ments).

In the photos: Room 6 is the early ch ildhood room

The moadon room was redesigned by an architect from Hatzeva. It was officially opened last week, though programs have been running since the summer. It’s very comfortable, well-designed chairs, original art, two brand-new computers, good lighting, clean walls.

CHELI is a social work student doing her training here  (black shirt and pink)

RAVIT is the mother in brown

LOREN is her daughter, here for English classes

BELLE is the educational coordinator

MARGALIT is the youth activities coordinator

SIVAN is the BT coordinator

Margalit: the youth activities coordinator has to pull everything together, cooperate, create new opportunities and an informational structure that allows us to know what's happening with each youth, so that no one falls between the chairs. We have Noar B’Aliyah youth movement garin and we integrate the parents into the activities. It was difficult to bring the parents and children together. There are groups for cinema, communications, meeting professionals, sports instructor group, and more.

There are several older madrichim. Margalit is from Jerusalem, decided to live here with her Garin. They finished the army a year ago and settled right here in the neighborhood. We’re creating a continuum of educational service, focused right now on the 9th grade, and will be expanded.

JENNY is an 11th grader, born in Ukraine. Started volunteering in 9th grade. She says that this week there were 100 youth taking part in activities; we’ve undergone a massive change this last year. I’d rather be here than wandering the street. The 11th grade is responsible for activities like the forum, chanuka party, summer camp. Jenny is also an artist – she drew the main mural on the wall of the early childhood room. Wants to go for officer training in the army, has learned about leadership and personal example from the program here. My volunteering here has helped me in life.

BELLE is in charge of the educational center for math and English. 51 kids come to the center, they have 6 teachers (4 from the commune/garin). Loren is here to study English and math, she's very serious, highly motivated.  Belle notes that the center allows us to identify needs and behavioral difficulties not just in the subjects being taught. Loren’s mother takes part.

Loren’s mother loves it because at school there are 40 kids in the English class. Here there are two. Loren is progressing well, she loves it too. It’s my future success, it strengthens me, my grades are improving. Loren’s mom loves that she comes here now from her own free will, she enjoys being here.

DAVID what we have here is boosting the weakest sectors, narrowing the gaps, empowering, improving people’s self-confidence. There are solutions here that you can't get at the schools and people can feel at home here.

CHELI we have 60 families of kids aged 4-6 taking part in enrichment classes, improving parent-child communication; identifying development problems, referring to the right solutions, developing child skills. There are lots of parents especially here who don’t know how to play with their kids, we need to teach the parents, show them how to be caring, patient, understanding, give guidance, but retaining appropriate parental authority. It changes people’s homes and families for the better.

There's a process, but we see change and progress. We’ve often seen parents come with the expectation that they'd drop off the kids in front of the TV. That’s not going to happen here.

There's a program twice a week for kids under age 2. The mothers’ forum meets around problems, challenges, need to work through concepts, to speak, to discuss. Empower them with skills. How to move from diapers, how to talk to kids, how to play. What's interesting is that they have the ‘formal’ discussion but we see them continuing the discussion outside. There’s an added extra.

David: we’re sending out from here better citizens like Jenny and Victoria. There are quality people here, we can find them and help them. There were those who didn’t speak, we didn’t see or hear them. David tells the story of a 9th grade boy who didn’t speak, wouldn’t look you in the eyes, stammered. Now in 10th grade, takes part here actively, volunteers, smiles, looks you in the eyes, has confidence. It’s because of the learning center and the special attention.

Shemesh Ashkelon

The entire family is responsible for granting children with special needs the critical experience of growing up in a warm and supportive environment that accepts them as a full member of the family. However, often times the family has limited expectations for special needs children and thinks of them as a permanent burden. This attitude threatens to prevent these children from ever fully rehabilitating. JDC developed the Shemesh (the Hebrew word for sun) program in order to provide families with the tools needed to encourage their children to reach their full potential. Shemesh helps break the cycle of disappointment and provides families with a new ray of hope for their special needs children (age birth to six). It spreads the strengths and experiences gained by other families with similar challenges through mentorship, training and community programs.

Location: Merkaz Meyda, 1 Dibolt St. Ashkelon (a shelter building)

Shemesh is a program to empower the parents of children with special needs. It uses more experienced parents as mentors for new SN families

It takes place in three locations: Rosh Ha’ayin, Baka El-Gabiyeh and Ashkelon

Emphases:

Abuse and neglect among SN children is two to four times higher due to communications issues.

Integration in the schools, army, etc is critical, prevent loneliness

Strengthen the families, who often suffer greatly with an SN child. An SN child completely changes the family dynamic and balance. The parents see their child every day; the professionals don’t have that level of commitment, intuition.           

It took 10 years to set up Shemesh. The “kesher” NGO runs the program. The idea is also to have parents on the steering committee and professional committee. The parents have experience, knowledge.

MICHAL [amazing] is the Shemesh National Coordinator. Mother of 4 children, including a set of twins, one – Tomer – with special needs who was born without a functioning kidney. He fought and survived, at the age of 7 had a transplant but until then didn’t develop properly, lost brain and physical capacity, diminished speech and vision.

At the age of 12 Tomer developed lymphoma, pains and other side-effects to the anti-rejection medicine for the kidney. He did dialysis for two years, it was awful, we didn’t see the horizon. All this time he didn’t grow or develop. In 2007 he underwent another kidney transplant, this one caught well, he started to grow. We moved him to special education, he finished 12th grade and wanted to go to the army. Now he’s doing national service in the police. He lives in a special needs apartment, he lives on his own and I'm letting him flourish. I was very depressed when he left at first.

I studied social work. I didn’t want to work as a social worker, I had an MA in organizational management. When the twins were 3.5 I quit my job as a personnel manager because I wanted a sense of purpose in social action. Then I did an MA in social work. I set up a special needs center in Kochav-Yair. I saw an email from the Joint that they were looking for a coordinator for Shemesh, with one line that grabbed my attention, that preference would be given to parents of children with special needs. Within two weeks I was being interviewed and knew I wanted the job. I'm very happy.

The stories are the focus of the program. We want to transmit a positive message to the parents. It doesn’t matter what religion, culture, location – the grappling with this reality is shared.

MAZAL from the Ashkelon Municipality Welfare Department. We built this on the success of the accessible community program, we opened an information center, course for ten activists with special needs.

16 parents are participating. The group was set up quickly – we were surprised how much eagerness there was for this: blind, retardation, deaf.

[Better Together will also build a special needs track emphasizing youth at risk and their parents:

develop services

community forum

training professionals, workshops

Within these we want to develop a special needs track. In Rosh Ha’Ain there is a Better Together and Shemesh]

YAEL is the Shemesh coordinator in Ashkelon. She was the accessible community coordinator for two years; JDC provides the Hosen program for the community, and in the last two years I’ve seen the work of the Joint. I'm a single mother and adopted a child from Russia with special needs four years ago.

The current workshop is amazing.

ETTI (in orange): I didn’t think twice. I immediately said yes. There's so little knowledge. I had a girl with Downs Syndrome 30 years ago. I was in complete shock, I didn’t know what to do. They said it was a mongloid. It was my third baby, I had two healthy daughters and now this storm. I ran away from the hospital to my normal life. I couldn’t listen, people thought they could help but I didn’t want to talk to them. I wanted a normal family. I cried for several weeks, I decided to give her up for adoption. There was a social worker who said to me, ok, let’s go see her so you can say goodbye in the hospital. I thought, she’ll be ugly, scary. Ok, fine, let’s say goodbye and that way I can cut off. I was scared when I went in. The nurse took her diaper off and I saw that they hadn’t been treating her well, she had a wound near her diaper. I was angry, my daughter wasn’t being treated right, where’s my commitment as her mother, I should take her home.  Her name is Vered.

The first year wasn’t easy. I didn’t want any contact with other parents. I thought I was different. But slowly I met other parents, we set up a support group, we would meet once a week, things changed. Vered became the focus of the family. We would run from one treatment to the next, the whole family was recruited to this effort. It harmed the other girls (she had another daughter after Vered) – we invested so much in her and neglected somewhat the others. We didn’t really understand how to do this, we made lots of mistakes. I just wanted what was best.

Vered lived with us until she was 27 at home. Now she lives in a hostel, she's very happy. She comes every Shabbat for dinner, all the family gathers together. She has given so much to this family, taught her sisters so much. Thanks to her we’ve developed as a family, we’re a caring, emotional, understanding family thanks to her. The home is open, tolerant, we’re a good family.

ESTHER is the mother of Noa, aged 22 with shituk mochin. Got a phonecall from Yael four months ago about the program. 

Michal: there was a woman on a panel in a Shemesh discussion with two special needs kids, who said that she prays that if God takes her that he’ll also take the kids immediately because they won't succeed in living without her.

Shemesh stages:

Identify and connect to parents of special needs kids, with a little free time. Empower them in the escorts group. 21 meetings, once a week for 5 months every Wednesday evening. It trains them to  escort new special needs famil ies. The emphasis is that the escorts don’t give advice or solutions, rather to respect each family and the stage it’s in, to listen and to understand. The course has a syllabus: active listening, reacting to situations, judgementalism, identity, siblings, family functioning and much more.

During the course, they’re assigned to the families. Each has 3 families.

Yael is a hotline for assistance.

Yael is also trained at the same time

The families go through a process. There’s lasting impact

The program is for three years, the course is for a year. The Welfare Department has 1000 households identified as special needs (out of 40,000 total households in the city).

Neve Alonim Neighborhood schematics

The Color Red Song