Special summer – special activities for the children and the youth

These summer holidays are rather different - while usually children and youth are excited to get a well-earned break from their busy school schedule, this summer feels like an endless extension of unstructured time with lots of hours on social media; being connected to others without real connection - though admittedly without home work. 

While government restrictions are staying in place in order to reduce the spread of COVID-19, we worked on a summer program for the youth that gives us different ways of encounters. So, while we aren't able to have any holiday camps this summer, we still met for picnic and games, had open days at the youth club at 'Our Lady Woman of Valor' and we offered three different skills training courses for the youth in software development, carpentry and sewing.

Each of these courses is addressing key skills and attitudes like: Being connected to others, being flexible, being able to communicate well with others and problem-solve, being able to find purpose and meaning, being self-confident, being able to make realistic plans for the future. We believe that especially now in these uncertain times with COVID-19 facing us with instability, isolation, economic challenges, and physical vulnerability, it is especially important to strengthen our youth resilience skills.  

We would like to say a special thank you to Ms. Elisheva Yuval who gave us a donation for our youth club activities, so that we could purchase and restore 3 laptops. Thank you to Maroun Tannous who has given us a very interesting insight into the world of software development and who with great patience invested into the start of our new computer equipment. A wonderful addition to our youth club facilities. Giving youth an access to a functioning computer is really a basis to access education - especially now that educational institutions base a big part of their teaching on distance learning.  

We are looking forward to our upcoming day trip to a woodworking-design workshop outside of Beit Shemesh and to our trip to the community in Beer Sheba.