How much stuff costs

I had a conversation with a colleague the other day from a nearby Jewish federation about "how much things cost" for JDC services around the world.

Bearing in mind that costs differ from community to community, and equivalencies aren't as simple as you'd hope ... here nonetheless are some basic illustrative 'unit costs' that give you a good sense of the kind of tzedaka (charity) opportunities you can have when you make a donation.

$180 sends an Israeli with a disability to an independent living skills workshop, like computer skills, healthy living, household management.

$300 send an at-risk Israeli kid to a business entrepeneurship program, helping ease his or her transition into society and keeping them safe and off the streets.

$1000 sends one kid to the Szarvas summer camp in Hungary, changing lives and renewing Jewish community across Europe.

$1750 can cover the cost of an elderly client with food, medicine, home care and winter relief in the former Soviet Union.

$2150 can allow an Israeli woman to take part in a 'Woman of Valor' Employment program, shifting her from economic dependence to independence, and changing the face of Israeli society.

If you're looking for a way to make a difference - a real, powerful, personal difference - in one person's life, consider these ideas when you go to make a gift.
And if you've already made that gift, directly to the Joint or through your federation, then know how grateful we are - on behalf of the people above, and all those whose lives you've enriched, empowered and rescued.

More on Israeli women

I've looked in the past at challenges faced by disadvantaged women in Israel. It's a really important issue, and not one that's given enough time and focus.

One of the key areas where you can see the challenge is in the field of employment ...

Here's the problem: disadvantaged groups face lots of barriers on the road to employment:
They tend to have very large families, there are often cultural barriers to employment. there are issues of stereotypes and discrimination. Many of these groups have lower education and all kinds of language barriers. They often have much less access to employment opportunities

So how are we doing? It's a mixed story ....

 In 2009-10, 61% of Haredi women worked, significantly up from 47% in 2009-10.

 The most dramatic growth has been with the employment of Ethiopian-Israeli women. In 2001, only 30% of Ethiopian-Israeli women were employed. By 2010, the rate more than doubled to 62%.

 Even among those with less than 12 years of education, employment rose from 26% to 46%.

 The low levels of education of Ethiopians contribute to a very large gap in average monthly earnings - 4,000 NIS compared with 6,400 NIS for all Jewish women.

 Arab-Israeli women face the biggest employment barriers, with only 26% of 25-64 years olds employed in 2009-10, up from 19% in 2001.

 36% of employed Arab-Israeli women work part time, most of whom cannot find full-time employment.

 By contrast, employment gaps are very small for women with academic degrees: 77% for Arab-Israeli women and 83% for Jewish women.

If you want more information and sources on these findings, message me, or contact my colleagues at Myers-JDC-Brookdale. If you want to receive this blog on a regular basis by email (about twice a week, depending on what else I'm up to), sign up in the top-right box where it says "follow" ...

Israeli women

You would think, with a casual glance at the international comparisons, that Israel is doing great when it comes to the status of women. On issues like education and employment, the base lines look favorable. For example ...

51% of Israeli women ages 25 to 34 have at least a post-secondary education, compared with 42% of other western countries.

57% of Israeli women ages 15 to 64 are employed, on par with the average for other western countries.


And yet .... behind these averages lies a very different picture.
For some of our discussions we've been looking at two areas in particular, education and employment.

In the field of education, there are some really significant gaps in the education of disadvantaged women, even though there's been a lot of progress:

(1) In 2010, 59% of Ethiopian women and 41% of Arab-Israel women didn't complete high school, compared with only 5% of all Jewish women.
Many of these women hadn't even finished 8th grade.

(2) In 2010, Ethiopian and Arab-Israeli women had much lower rates than Jewish Israelis for getting secondary degrees: 20% for Ethiopians and 32% for Arab-Israelis, compared with 67% of all Jews. (Although you should note that both Ethiopians and Arab-Israeli women made considerable progress between 2001 and 2010—from 12% to 20% for Ethiopians, and 18% to 32% for Arab-Israelis).

(3) Passing Matriculation exams: Among recent high school graduates, the gaps are declining further. In 2009-10, 43% of Arab-Israeli 12th-grade girls and 35% for Ethiopian 12th-grade girls scored high enough on their matriculation exams to meet university entrance requirements, compared with 65% of all Jewish 12th-grade girls.

Girls from all groups are outperforming boys, particularly among the disadvantaged groups. The matriculation rates among boys were 28% for Arab-Israelis and 18% for Ethiopians, compared with 58% for all Jews.

If you want more information and sources on these findings, message me, or contact my colleagues at Myers-JDC-Brookdale. If you want to receive this blog on a regular basis by email (about twice a week, depending on what else I'm up to), sign up in the top-right box where it says "follow" ...

How to Fight Breast Cancer in Bosnia

wonderful article in the Huffington Post by my amazing colleague Nela Hasic ...

How to Fight Breast Cancer in Bosnia: Togetherness

Posted: 10/02/2013 9:37 am

Each October, for six years now, thousands of Bosnians -- Muslims, Catholics, Orthodox Christians and Jews -- gather in this historic city to battle again. But they don't raise arms against one another, but rather against a breast cancer. For people who suffered years of horrific warfare, the war against cancer is a metaphor that is perhaps best left on the sidelines. But the fight to contain and prevent this disease is a battle we fight daily.

Our most visible activity is the Bosnia-Herzegovina Race for the Cure, which has become an annual national event each October in our country of 4 million people, marking Breast Cancer Awareness Month.

Each year, as I get ready for the race, I reflect back on my own engagement with this advocacy work. It began with a phone call at my home in the early morning hours of April 10, 1992, just a few days after the outbreak of the Bosnian War. On the other end of the line was a Jewish community member with an urgent offer.

The representative said we could either leave Sarajevo for the airport immediately and be airlifted out -- part of a clandestine operation by an aid group to protect members of the Sarajevo Jewish community and others from the siege -- or stay at our own peril. Reluctantly, and at the behest of my father, who lost his entire family in the Holocaust, my family headed for the airport for Israel, where we watched helplessly as our country was torn apart by internecine fighting.

Ten years later and homesick, we returned to a very different nation. Bosnia-Herzegovina was divided into Serbian, Croat and Bosniac zones of control, essentially a country politically divided in two. And while peace has thankfully lasted, progress has been mixed -- old hatreds still run deep.

In 2004, I was offered a job running a small health education initiative called the Women's Health Empowerment Program (WHEP), which encourages the early detection of breast cancer. WHEP is, ironically, a program of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, the same aid group that rescued me from Sarajevo years before. Shortly after, Susan G. Komen became a partner in our work. That phone call years ago still rings in my ear.

Through WHEP, we have created something unprecedented in my country's history: support groups and hotlines for breast cancer survivors, health-related services such as free mammogram check ups and pap tests, workshops and facilitating the collaboration of government agencies, non-governmental agencies, and the medical community.

This work has offered me a surprising pocket of hope. After all, breast cancer does not differentiate between religions or ethnicities. And because awareness of the disease in Bosnia lags far behind that of other Western nations and cancer detection facilities are fewer and less advanced, survival rates tend to be markedly lower than elsewhere. For these reasons cancer education has been a high priority of ours, and a challenge, given the various groups seeking information.

But, we've had some significant success. More than 2,200 breast cancer survivors received psychological support through 13-peer support groups created by WHEP. When the race celebrated its fifth anniversary in Sarajevo last year, the more than 6,300 participants included 400 survivors from all ethnic backgrounds.

Last year we were able to provide some 1,300 post-surgery health and care packages to every woman diagnosed with breast cancer in the country as well as close to 700 mammogram (and other health-related) check ups for under-served women and women with no health insurance. More than 4,000 first aid packages were distributed to breast cancer patients in hospitals across Bosnia and Herzegovina. More than 1,600 women received free mammography screening.

Along the way, we organized interfaith meetings for survivors of breast cancer. Inevitably, some suspicion and apprehension carried over from the war. Yet over the years, this has been replaced by a sense of camaraderie, even friendship. On weekends, Serbian Orthodox participants in our project from East Sarajevo might meet with Catholics Croats from Siroki Brijeg or Muslims in Visoko.

It's not always been without conflict. In 2010, we thought about calling off the annual race due to political tensions incited by local elections and conflict in the Middle East. In the end, however, we went ahead and were rewarded with an exceptional turnout of more than 4,000 people.

The model that we've created is a model that could be replicated elsewhere. Women don't need to share national aspirations or religious beliefs. All that is needed to make this work a success is to acknowledge that cancer is a killer that doesn't differentiate among ethnicities or religions. That may sound like a simple observation, but believe me -- it's not. However, we have shown that women can come together on behalf of a greater good to achieve health and well being for ourselves and our daughters and granddaughters.

Some 20 years since I fled my home and returned to an uncertain future, I am proudly part of a movement bringing together women of all faiths to battle an indiscriminate killer. It may not completely heal the wounds of a struggling country, but it delivers hope -- and life -- to women and families in a place eager for healing.

Nela Hasic is the Bosnia director of the Women's Health Empowerment Program.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/nela-hasic/breast-cancer-month_b_4018740.html

International Women's Leadership Workshop - March 2013