The Limited Times

Now you can see non-English news...

Dry the youth villages Israel today

2022-07-01T13:09:22.526Z


The budget erosion suffered by youth villages threatens to hurt the latest educational framework for youth • Instead of devoting themselves to the educational mission, CFOs are forced to raise budgets from donations and find alternative sources of income • "We want to be the country patrol, but can not operate under existential anxiety"


"As the director of a youth village, I invest more than half of my time, and at times even 80 percent of my time, in raising resources for the village. Every month I break my head over how to pay salaries," says Danny Gildin, director of the Kfar Galim youth village and chairman of the village council. He has been involved in education for 20 years, including managing education departments in local authorities, so that the administrative field is no stranger to him. For the past five years he has been fulfilling a dream - to run a youth village. "A youth village is an amazing and successful educational model.

It's every educator's dream.

But unfortunately instead of education I am busy raising donations and resources.

It is completely acceptable to me that a principal should also be involved in the economic field, but the attitude should be reversed, most of the time should be invested in the educational act itself. "

Like Gildin, another 43 youth village principals are engaged in the pursuit of funding sources for ongoing educational activities.

Why?

Because the youth villages have been suffering for years from constant erosion in state payments and unrealistic budgeting.

The annual budget gap is estimated at NIS 56 million each year, which in recent years has created a budget hole of hundreds of millions of shekels.

The under-budgeting threatens the institutions and impairs the quality of services provided to 11,000 boys and girls at risk, whose villages are their second home, and in many cases their first home.

In Kfar Galim, located on the Mediterranean coast at the foot of the Carmel ridge, 330 children study at the boarding school, a third of them children of high school (youth immigrating before parents), half of the youth aliyah students, ie Israeli children from low socio-economic backgrounds, and the rest, about 30 Youth, belong to the football academy sponsored by Maccabi Haifa. In addition, the village has a high school where another 1,300 children from the area study. The budget. "We raise everything else."

So what, you've become a snorer?

"Only donations can not survive. Most villages, like our village, do not have a traditional body that donates regularly. We have to compete with tens of thousands of other organizations for each donation, so donations can not be the only source. "Then we will have beautiful projects for children, but our difficulty is also in the places of bread and butter, of basic existence."

So what other funding sources do you have?

"We have to take our compound and turn it into a hospitality factory. We are forced to rent our facilities for summer camps and events during vacations, and then boarding school students are forced to vacate their equipment and leave home, even when there are complex problems at home. Another house in the country, are forced to cram into a limited number of rooms all summer.

Of course it also squeezes out our professional staff, the maintenance and kitchen staff work all summer non-stop, and it does not allow for a breathable air village.

"We also use the resources of our farm to maximize income. In the past the barn was very profitable, but unfortunately it is completely eroded. For us, bananas, in a good year, manage to help. But in agriculture there are always bad years, like this year."

The last refuge is in danger

To understand how the budget deficit was created, one has to sail back in time to 1974 - when it was decided that the retention of trainees in the youth villages would be budgeted through "Basket Laor", which was supposed to address 85 percent of the youth villages' built-in budget.

In the 1990s, the Ministry of Education amended a supplementary budget regulation called "Guided" for youth villages that have a high school, boarding school and farm.

A youth village that met the dictates of the installation received additional funding.

The state later restricted the installation, leading to erosion.

According to BDO data, while the cost of living in Israel has risen significantly in the last decade, the "guided regulation" limit has dropped from 81 percent to 67 percent, which has widened the budget gap.

Thus, in practice, the state regularly deducts about 33 percent of the budget of 44 youth villages, ie NIS 56 million a year.

The trainees referred to youth villages usually come from the geosocial periphery.

These are children of families with low socio-economic status, some of whom lack a family background, children who have had social difficulties in previous settings, and children with educational gaps and emotional needs.

The youth villages are a last resort for them.

According to studies, 69 percent of youth village trainees come from families that have difficulty functioning as a supportive and nurturing framework, and 60 percent have been exposed to risk situations in the family and the environment.

In a sense, the youth villages are a prevention program before degenerating into extremes, and they reap successes both in academic achievement and in the value-social construction of the youth, which is reflected in the desire of the youth village graduates to contribute to the military and civilian life.

The story of Darba Fikada and Orian Oshdi illustrates this well.

"I immigrated to Israel from Ethiopia in 2007 with my mother and four other brothers. I was 16 then," says Fikada, 31, married and the father of a child.

"After a period at an absorption center where I studied in a studio, I was transferred to the Tom Khorev Lat youth village.

At first I could not complete a sentence in Hebrew.

Even though I was already almost 17 I was put in ninth grade, to fill in gaps.

It was not easy for me, but I had the willpower and the framework wrapped us up for us to succeed.

The school gave us tools.

This is the place that built me ​​for who I am today. "

"Only donations can not survive."

Danny Gildin, Photo: Ancho Gush - Ginny

By the tenth grade, a command had already successfully approached matriculation in history and citizenship, and it seemed possible to declare another successful absorption, but then disaster struck.

"My mother managed to buy a house in Holon. We moved there, but after a week she was diagnosed with an illness. For a month she was hospitalized, until we lost her. We were left with five children without anyone. It was complete chaos."

After 30 days of mourning, the command returned to the village.

The educational staff and his friends helped him complete the study material he had lost.

"I received a lot of warmth and support and was able to attend the 11th grade matriculation, and later also the twelfth grade. I graduated with honors and continued to the thirteenth grade to specialize in computers."

Along with the academic success, under the guidance of the youth village, the command began to help other new immigrants.

He educated children, regularly visited absorption centers, instructed Bnei Akiva in a moshav near the village, and established a Bnei Akiva branch near his home in Holon.

Command enlisted in the Air Force, became a company outstanding, and after full service was discharged to civilian life.

At first he worked in high-tech, but the desire to donate led him to an educational mission in Ethiopia.

Later he worked with new immigrants in various projects, and today he works in the Holon municipality in the absorption and immigration department.

"I try to give back to the community everything I got in the youth village," he says.

"this is your house"

Orian Oshdi, 28, a resident of Ramat Gan, grew up in a reality of domestic violence.

"When I was four, my mother ran away to a shelter for battered women with me and two other brothers," says Oshdi.

"I am proud of my mother who managed to get out of the cycle of violence. He is in a shelter for about two and a half years, and then my mother returned to her hometown in Ramat Gan. She worked 12 hours a day, and most of the time she could not take care of us. "She can not really raise me, and I can not even read and write yet. I went to the city welfare office and asked to be taken out of the house."

Oshdi was first referred to the Ministry of Welfare's nursery.

She learned to read and write, and the manager of the place, Iris Keter, gave her love and academic assistance.

"She became my spiritual mother. She made me realize that I was not just a street girl. In high school I was looking for an equal opportunity and a new page.

I arrived at the 'Honesty' youth village and fell in love with the place, I felt at home.

I found loving people there, who only want my best, see me and believe in me.

To this day I have close contact with the staff in the village.

Thanks to them I was able to change my story.

I started from scratch.

In the village I was diagnosed and found to be gifted, sent to science-loving youth, even though I did not have a penny.

They paid for me.

"Later, I did undergraduate courses already in high school. Eli Cohen, the boarding school director, also took care of financing my participation in a delegation that went abroad.

Because I had no family backbone, I stayed in the village on vacations as well, and ate with the instructors' children.

Eli told me that 'honesty' is my home and that I can stay whenever I want, without giving explanations.

I was taught that I can do anything.

These are the values ​​with which I left the village. "

* 44 youth villages operate in Israel, and serve as a framework, among other things, for about 11,000 girls and boys at risk

* 60 percent of the campers in the youth villages have been exposed to risk in the family, 69 percent come from dysfunctional families

* The budget erosion created a deficit estimated at NIS 56 million a year

The departure to life outside the supportive framework of the village was accompanied by crises, but the staff continued to accompany her.

Eventually, Oshri, a girl who could not read at the age of 12, graduated with honors with a bachelor's degree in government, law and public administration, and is currently the movement's information and training coordinator for the quality of government.

"For me, setting a budget for a youth village is not a political or commanding act, but a human act that should not be questioned at all. For these children, for whom the state has taken responsibility and taken them out of the home, they deserve to be believed, just as they believed me."

Violation of the educational interest

But the ongoing under-budgeting of the youth villages makes it very difficult for them to give trainees today what Oshri received a decade ago.

According to a study conducted by Prof. Emanuel Gruper - President of the International Organization for Boarding Education FICE, Vice Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities at the Ono Academic Campus, a world-renowned expert in the field of youth villages and boarding schools - the consequences of the deficit affect students.

“Principals are busy chasing financial resources to fill the missing budget, instead of concentrating all the effort on educational challenges,” Gruper explains.

"The lack of budget leads to harm to the educational interests of the youth. For example, the pressure to rent boarding school facilities on Saturdays and holidays comes at the expense of the boarding school students' sense of home. And their training, in contrast to the psychological needs of the youth in need of stability.

"I have great appreciation for the Israeli governments throughout the years who invest a lot of money in keeping children in boarding schools, on a relatively large scale compared to the world. But in recent years there has been an erosion and a budget deficit that creates serious problems." Moshe (Kinley) Tor-Paz.

On Tuesday this week, we held a debate in the Knesset on the moral obligation to properly budget the youth villages.

"We have been preparing this discussion for many months to put pressure on the decision makers to build the next budget, but now with all the political mess, I'm not sure this event will have the effect we wanted it to have."

"In Corona, the youth villages were the only educational institutions that continued to operate as usual," says Gildin. "Waves came to 24 refugees, children aged 14-13 without parents, and we made an effort to absorb them. When the state needs us we are its patrol. That is our essence, but we can not do it when we are constantly in existential anxiety."

The chairman of the Youth Villages and Boarding Schools Lobby, MK Moshe Tor-Paz (Yesh Atid): "All of us. We will do everything we can to close the gap in the next budget."

Were we wrong?

Fixed!

If you found an error in the article, we would love for you to share it with us

Source: israelhayom

All news articles on 2022-07-01

You may like

Trends 24h

News/Politics 2024-03-28T06:04:53.137Z

Latest

© Communities 2019 - Privacy

The information on this site is from external sources that are not under our control.
The inclusion of any links does not necessarily imply a recommendation or endorse the views expressed within them.