A school for evacuee children that was established near an electricity company substation in Tiberias/Eli Ashkenazi
The National Fund for Israel has been running an important and ground-breaking project for the past two years: the "Youth at Chance Program", whose goal is to give youth who drop out or are at risk an opportunity to return to a meaningful life path and enable integration into frameworks.
The program, which operates in the peripheral settlements and KKL-Junk agricultural farms throughout the country, has received added value since the beginning of the war in Gaza, when the department works for evacuees, families and youth
.
The wonderful youth of the project mobilized and took a significant part in assisting various activities for families and children who were evacuated from their homes," says Yifat Ovadia Loski, chairman of KKL-Junk. "We are proud to support such projects.
Doing war is the fruit of our hard work and investment in informal education.
This is how we march the future generation forward - giving options and giving opportunities to the youth who drop out."
KKL-Junk activities for dropout youth. From cycling, through welding and carpentry to literature/Alex Kolomoisky, KKL-Junk Outreach Department
Shimon Abuchatzira, director of the Youth at Chance Department in the Education and Community Division at KKL-Junk, is well aware of the consequences of fighting. He himself was called to the reserves and had to juggle between the worlds. "Right now the war is affecting the activity," Abuchatzira emphasizes, "it's getting a little more complex, also in terms of recruitment The staff members and of course the boys and girls who were evacuated from the north and south of the country.
We are adjusting ourselves in this new situation and under non-ideal conditions."
Abuchatzira explains that the "Youth with a Chance" program creates frameworks for youth who drop out of the employment world, with an emphasis on the values of KKL-Junk.
"We work with local authorities, from the north to the south, from the social and geographic periphery. Our goal is to take dropout youth, who are on the street, and create an alternative framework for them with employment. They undergo training in a variety of fields such as carpentry, welding, training, off-road cycling or literature , and we employ them at KKL-Junk.
"The goal is to connect these boys and girls, in the best possible way, to Israeli society. Whether preparing them for military service, national service, the world of employment or returning to some kind of educational framework. We work with all sectors, ultra-Orthodox, religious, Druze. We tailor the appropriate program For each boy or girl, and for each sector, in the way that suits them. There are also agricultural farms, an area that the children cultivate. They come there several times a week and take care of everything that is needed."
"In the first year of activity, we started with only 10 local authorities," he explains, "we grew accordingly and today we work with 34 authorities, but the war moved us left and right. We have a shortage of staff because of the recruitment, two staff members were murdered on October 7 and there is complexity Because of the evacuation of such a large part of the youth population in the south and north. We also reach out to the evacuees, do empowerment activities with them, build benches and let them get busy doing things
.
We connect to Halal's family, to his story, together with the youth, and build a living memorial monument.
Let it have value, a contribution to the community, and the youth also learn about that space and absorb values from the family."
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KKL-Junk activity. "The goal is to connect these boys and girls in the best possible way to Israeli society"/Alex Kolomoisky, KKL-Junk Public Relations Department
"Zionism and love of the land"
Avi Musan, Director of the Education and Community Department at KKL-Junk, explains the sensitivity of the activity, especially during such a time. We touched on the issue of youth at risk.
When we started it was a serious challenge for us, we had to study the field, see who is involved in it, who our audience is and what their needs are, and how we can link it to KKL-Junk's activities, centered on Zionism, preserving the environment and loving the land."
Mosen says that the last few years have added, due to the circumstances, additional and difficult pressures on the youth.
"There were two very significant events, the outbreak of the Corona epidemic and now the war, this combination led to an increase in the number of boys and girls who dropped out of educational settings, and this made our activity even more significant.
"We are constantly testing ourselves, with the aim of improving," Musan emphasizes. "Although These children are defined as dropout youth, but they are quality boys and girls, who have the skills and abilities to do whatever they want.
Our job is to give them the tools and the ability to do something meaningful, to return to a normative life path, whether it is a return to an educational framework, preparation for military service or national service, and of course preparation for the job market.
"With the current situation in the country today, the challenge is no longer only KKL-Junk's," Mosen adds, "it is a national challenge, we are fighting for the youth.
Fortunately, we see that the youth also believe in us and vote with their feet."
Asher Yifarah, responsible in the program for the management of KKL-Junk's partnerships in the program with external parties and for organizational development, believes in the initiative: "The boys go through educational, therapeutic and occupational processes with us. There is a wide variety of activities which were developed for them with the aim of imparting them with different types of skills. This is a unique program, which almost does not exist in Israel, certainly not in the format we have, which is a very broad envelope. The boys receive everything they need, whether it is clothing, food and, of course, continuous accompaniment of social assistance. There is We have a continuous relationship with the local authority, when the difficulty is at the end of the authority over the trainee.
"It is important to remember that one of our goals is to return them to be in formal education settings.
When people hear youth at risk, they think that these are boys and girls who are on the margins, but it is important to remember that they survived and went through things that required great strength from them.
It's our job to channel it to the right places."
"Things happened that required great powers from them"/Alex Kolomoisky, KKL-Junk information system
"part of a big family"
Yefarah explains that sometimes there are difficulties, but it's all a matter of perseverance.
"There were situations where boys didn't get up in the morning, and on the other hand, there were customers who were waiting and expecting to receive activities. But we know how to deal with it, we wrap them with a lot of love, but on the other hand we set limits for them, and that's how we slowly build trust with them. They understand that this is a place that includes you, you are part of a big family, in the end you are promoted and we reach the goals we set.
"Our ambition in the future is to create integrated employment for them, meaning that we will find employers who will want to accept them after the whole process they went through with us, and at the same time we will continue to accompany them, but they will move on to real life.
This activity, this desire, takes on a different and greater meaning following the war and the number of families that were affected."
More on the same topic:
evacuees
KKL
Youth at Risk
War of Iron Swords
Gaza war