Helping Israeli youth at risk
THIS year's UIA Kol Nidrei Appeal will focus on several key projects to help youth at risk in Israel.
THIS year’s UIA Kol Nidrei Appeal will focus on several key projects to help youth at risk in Israel.
Net@ offers high-tech vocational training in 21 locations throughout Israel’s peripheral population centres, “turning high risk to high tech to bridge the social gap”, said UIA Victoria president Hayley Southwick.
The Youth Villages program comprises four educational youth villages throughout Israel, which provide a residential framework, counselling and education for youth at risk, as well as a safe haven to thrive, and prevent them going into the juvenile correction system.
Youth Futures is a revolutionary program, operating in 36 locations, which provides comprehensive, tailored intervention solutions for youth at risk, pairing them with trustees for three years to mentor them through their problems.
Southwick said some 300,000 Israeli youth are defined as “at-risk”, often growing up in abusive, non-supportive and violent environments. Struggles arise out of various factors, such as post-traumatic stress disorder from living close to the Gaza border, with statistics showing 75 per cent of Israeli children living near Gaza suffer from that condition.
Many at-risk young people live in the periphery and in low socio-economic surroundings, as well as being children of immigrant parents who may not have successfully been absorbed into Israeli society.
These problems affect their ability to function in a normative environment as well as impact their schooling and social behaviour, explained Southwick.
UIA’s annual Kol Nidrei Appeal has been operating since the 1990s, specifically aimed at improving the lives of Israeli children and youth.
“At this pinnacle time in our Jewish calendar, following the heralding in of a new year, UIA’s Kol Nidrei Appeal enables us to embrace and fulfil our core responsibility that all Jews are responsible for one another,” reflected Southwick.
“This appeal — for the Children of Israel — allows us to tangibly enhance their lives for a brighter future, and truly embodies our guiding principle, making it possible for all to act as a collective for the People of Israel,” she stated.
INFO
For more information or to make a donation, visit www.uiaaustralia.org.au or 1300 ISRAEL (1300 477 235).
AJN STAFF
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