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Our Projects

Beit Ayala - Home for Young Women at Risk in Kiryat Haim
Beit Hagefen Arab-Jewish Cultural, Community & Youth Center
Bnai Zion Medical Center, Haifa
Feeding the Hungry - Soup Kitchens
Gan Hayeled – Etgarim (Challenges) Program
HaifaNet – Establishment of an Educational Learning Network
Helping the Elderly - Cultural Enrichment Centers
Libraries for Public Schools
Urban Kibbutz in the Hadar Neighbourhood

Beit Ayala - Home for Young Women at Risk in Kiryat Haim

Beit Ayala serves 25 young women, ages 13-18, who are defined as at-risk by Haifa Welfare Department criteria. The house operates daily from 2 PM to 6 PM and is supervised by social workers, teachers and volunteers. The young women take various courses (e.g., communication skills, hairdressing) designed to enable them to find employment after leaving Beit Ayala.

Funds are needed to provide these young women with hot lunches; to purchase furniture, electrical appliances and office supplies; and to renovate the house.

Beit Hagefen Arab-Jewish Cultural, Community & Youth Center

Established in 1963 for the purpose of bringing together Arabs and Jews, Beit Hagefen educates towards coexistence, neighbourliness and tolerance by means of communal, cultural and artistic activities. These activities take place in three buildings adjacent to the neighbourhoods of Wadi Nisnas and the German Colony, and in an additional building in the downtown Abbas neighborhood.

Funds are needed to subsidize the following Arab-Jewish coexistence programs:

Bnai Zion Medical Center, Haifa
The New Pediatric Surgery Department

The Pediatric Surgery Department of Bnai Zion Medical Center is the leading department of its kind in northern Israel and serves as a referral centre for all children (ages 0 - 18 years) in Haifa and the north. The department has seventeen beds, admits over 1,625 children annually and performs 2,400 surgeries per year (about 6 per day!). These include ophthalmological, orthopedic, otolaryngological, plastic and urological surgeries. A multimedia classroom, whose online network is connected to teachers that tutor children with the material they have missed in class, allows the young patients to keep up with their schoolwork.

The Pediatric Surgery Department lacks adequate hospitalization facilities; funding for improvement is urgently required.

















Feeding the Hungry - Soup Kitchens

The Ariel Soup Kitchen (est. 2002) in the Hadar Hacarmel neighborhood, which feeds sixty people per day, is one of half a dozen neighbourhood-based soup kitchens distributed throughout the city and serving hot, full-course lunches to the needy, among them elderly and disabled people, who rely on the program for their main meal of the day. With additional funding, many more hungry and impoverished city residents would be reached.

Funds are needed for the purchase of groceries and kitchen equipment and for kitchen-staff salaries. Each soup kitchen will bear the name of its benefactor, which will be displayed prominently, in perpetuity, in a position of honour.

Gan Hayeled – Etgarim (Challenges) Program

Gan Hayeled (est. 1977) provides 350 developmentally and emotionally disabled children K-12 with structured opportunities for cognitive growth, social interaction, physical fitness and extracurricular enrichment. In the morning, the children attend special-education classes covering a range of basic skills; in the afternoon, they benefit from animal (pet) therapy, arts and crafts, movement and gymnastics, music, and outdoor hiking and camping. The Etgarim (Challenges) Program, created by and for severely disabled military veterans to enable them to participate in almost every imaginable sport activity, in recent years has made its expertise available to seriously disabled children. Using ropes, bridges, ladders, swings and other equipment, Etgarim teaches the children teamwork based on cooperation and mutual trust.

Gan Hayeled is eager to participate as an Etgarim site and needs funds to hire Etgarim's specially trained staff; purchase such equipment as ropes, bridges and ladders; and make minor structural modifications to its building in order to accommodate the site. The project will bear the name of its donor, which will be displayed prominently, in perpetuity, in a position of honour.

HaifaNet – Establishment of an Educational Learning Network

The Haifa municipal school system needs standardized, upgraded computer hardware and software; a centralized databank for storing educational materials; a shared search engine that will make all materials easily accessible to pupils, parents and teachers; a single municipal service provider that will link invidual school computer networks to each other; and a capacity building program designed to bring all Haifa school principals and teachers to full computer literacy. The target group is the city's 50,000 K-12 pupils, their parents, and the school system's 1,500 educators. The rationale is to decrease the digital divide among various pupils, teachers, and schools; to improve the quality of education citywide; and to ensure continuity of learning for pupils forced to stay away from school.

Funds are needed for the purchase of computer hardware and software, and for a training program to bring all Haifa principals and teachers to full computer literacy. The project will bear the name of its donor, which will be publicized prominently, in perpetuity, in a position of honour.

Helping the Elderly - Cultural Enrichment Centers

The city of Haifa sponsors several day clubs for the elderly that provide them with cultural enrichment. However, some find it very difficult to travel to one of these clubs and need smaller frameworks closer to home. In response, twelve "warm corners" have been established for them in neighborhoods throughout Haifa. These centers are active daily and attract Arab citizens, new immigrants, Ultra-Orthodox women, and many other sectors among the city's seniors.

Funds are needed to purchase computers, television sets and video players with which to equip these dozen Cultural Enrichment Centers for Haifa's elderly.

Libraries for Public Schools

Without a proper site or furnishings, a school cannot offer its pupils the practical experience of using modern library resources for research purposes and cultural enrichment. Among the Haifa public schools lacking adequate libraries are Hugim, Ibn Gvirol, Regavim, Tchernichovsky and Tel Hai. These schools and others manage with makeshift storage spaces, such as bomb shelters, that deny pupils easy access to study materials. 

Funds are needed to renovate or expand existing space and purchase library furnishings and equipment. Each library will bear the name of its donor, which will be displayed prominently, in perpetuity, in a position of honour.

Urban Kibbutz in the Hadar Neighbourhood

Alcohol, drugs and crime are among the social problems plaguing Haifa's once prosperous Hadar Hacarmel neighbourhood. In order to improve the residents' lives and renew the district, in 2005 a nationwide call went out from the city of Haifa to people in their mid-twenties – all graduates of youth movements, who were living in small urban communes throughout the country and working as educators – to come live and work in Haifa. In response, seventy friends ages 26-28 came to Hadar Hacarmel, where they have established the first Urban Kibbutz in Israel and are working round-the-clock as educators of disabled or otherwise needy or troubled children and adolescents.

As the young educators' access to the troubled population of the Hadar Hacarmel neighbourhood has grown, funds are urgently needed to expand and deepen the program's outreach to these disadvantaged children and their families.

Additional Projects

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