A safe and welcoming environment is something that at-risk youth can regularly depend on at Hadassah’s Meir Shfeyah Youth Aliyah Village. Even in times of war.
Amid the utter devastation and unspeakable atrocities unfolding during this war with Hamas, security for Meir Shfeyah’s students comes in different forms. Even comfort. According to a recent village update from Lauren Stern Kedem, Hadassah’s liaison to the village, when students return from their holiday break, they’ll be welcomed by a whole new look and feel of the lounges in their dormitories, repainted and refurnished.
Communication is also key. Staff members are in frequent contact with external students and their families, who are dealing with the war without the physical embrace of the village, being a source of assurance.
At the village, social workers are guiding the educational team to ensure healthy communication with their students when discussing the war and answering their questions, keeping student anxiety levels low. What’s more, Orli Tam, the village alumni coordinator, reaches out to village graduates and soldiers on a regular basis to make sure they’re safe and have what they need.
For the 70 Naale students (Jewish teens from the diaspora), who remain at the village and the students who have requested to return to Meir Shfeyah because of difficult situations at home, a sense of normalcy is helping them thrive throughout this crisis. They’re receiving care and lessons at the village’s enrichment center. Online lessons with students at home have begun, providing them with stability and a means of engagement.
Though many members of the village staff have been called up for reserve service in the IDF, the level of care still hasn’t wavered.
And while the village is hard at work caring for its students, the students are paying it forward, caring for one another, for the displaced families who are sheltering there and for the soldiers.
Hadassah-supported Youth Aliyah villages, Meir Shfeyah and Hadassah Neurim, help put immigrant and at-risk youth on the path to success. Since 1934, over 300,000 students from 80 lands have graduated from Youth Aliyah, having received a full spectrum of help — shelter, food, counseling, education and other supportive services — so they can become productive members of Israeli society.
Learn more about Hadassah-supported Youth Aliyah villages in Israel.
