Testimonials

We are very excited to share the news about Chernor – the GHIS graduate who is adopted by the community in Santa Barbara.

Chernor is a graduate from our first cohort.  He is an orphan from Liberia who grew up in extreme poverty.  Despite this, as a clever boy, he understood the value of education.  He worked as a rickshaw driver from age 12, and it was this that enabled him to pay his school fees.  GHIS was lucky to find Chernor as he was lucky to find us.

Dear Matanel Foundation, for the past two days,I  have been trying to find the best way to express my gratitude for this Award, I ended up completely missing a word of thanks but I just concluded by thanking you for your creativity to launch the Matanel Award-TIKKUN OLAM.

Dear Friends!
Thank you very much for awarding SHEKEL – Inclusion for People with Disabilities the
prestigious Matanel Prize!
The April 2022 Matanel Conference was inspiring, stimulating and fruitful, providing
numerous NGOs an opportunity to share ideas.

Yaakov just had his fifth child. He lives in Beitar, a city outside of Jerusalem. He wears traditional Hasidic garb. When Yaakov was 25 years old, he began his path to support his family. First, he enrolled in a “mechina,” a preparatory studies program, at a leading college. After completing a year of preparatory studies, he started studying computer science, which took him 3 and 1/2 years. During the time that Yaakov was studying, his family struggled financially.

Here, on Kaima Farm, it’s been non-stop action as we maintain pace with our ongoing intensive youth employment initiative and agricultural business; expand our new vegetable donation program, Feed My Neighbor; and prepare to launch our new residential program, Safe Living. Even with COVID still rampant, we still see abundance and opportunity all around us. Let me share two stories that illustrate this:

The past month has been challenging at Desert Stars, as I imagine it is for everyone. However, in these difficult times our staff, but particularly students and program participants, have been displaying a huge commitment to their communities as young leaders – something that makes us immensely proud.

“Vehadarta – The Grey Power” works with the population that is at the epicenter of the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. Senior citizens, whose exclusion from the employment market, in particular, and from various social frameworks in Israel, in general, led us to launch our activity, are the main high-risk group.

Na Lagaat center, like all other entertainment centers, has been temporarily closed as instructed by the Israeli Ministry of Health, until further notice. All employees are on leave for at least a month, hoping to get back to work soon and start preparation of upcoming activities, in order to get back to normality as soon as possible.

We want to share with you a few of the exciting happenings that took place in our schools – Kedma and Neve Hof recently.

Oriya Weil, an 11th grade Kedma student, participated in Yad Vashem’s Fifth World Holocaust Forum that was held on January 23rd, commemorating the 75th anniversary of Auschwitz-Birkenau liberation.

These are difficult, strange times. Here in Kaima Hukuk, we are grateful for the opportunity to be able to secure a steady, healthy, nutritious diet for the local communities. In times like these, the importance of local, community-based agriculture is more evident than ever. We are proud to be agriculturists and to cultivate a new generation of professional vegetable-growers.

During the corona school closures, the middle school continued a full schedule of carefully designed distance learning. The teachers, principal, and guidance staff worked together to make sure the students had meaningful classes, social activities, and daily support and interaction to help them through a very unsettling time.

In the past two months, we have all been through a particularly challenging period, to say the least, where we have been committed to far-reaching systemic and personal changes. The farm’s adult staff has understood that routine must be maintained in every way possible to meet the educational goals that are the basis of the farm’s activities. The events and workshops booked a few months in advance, restaurant orders and schools were all canceled, we realized that funds accompanying the farm would not be able to give us a hand in the near future and that all of our financial commitments to suppliers must be fully fulfilled.

Despite severe challenges posed by the Coronavirus outbreak, I am pleased to report to you that the Access for All program has continued full force, offering twelve courses to 220 senior citizens of the Negev, all of whom are on welfare.

During this year we had 3000 visits of children and youth from the ultra-Orthodox community.

The program enables us to expose these young students to a new and unfamiliar world for them- world of science and Technology. Throughout the schedule, the groups visited our Science Museum as well as the outdoor Science park and took part in the various challenging tasks such as “Escape Park” (based on an ‘escape room’ format) as well as different workshops in our Medical Simulation Unit where they learned about certain topic and using the equipment.

Today, after 4.5 years of hard work, I am proud to report that we have reached an amazing goal: We have enabled 3,000 women and men to establish their own successful businesses! Thanks to your generous support and our amazing staff and volunteers, we are making a real social and economic revolution in Israeli society.

A few days ago we had the most moving gathering of our volunteer students towards the end of the year. Not all the volunteers were able to come, but the majority made the effort and enjoyed an uplifting experience.

The volunteers shared with each other their touching stories and struggles from their experience in the “Perach Zahav Matanel” project and drew strength and ideas from each other.
It is apparent how meaningful the project is for the elderly and not less, for the students.
Some relayed that they are the only ones to walk into their elderly’s house! Besides for their visit during the week, the senior is all alone and eagerly awaits the students visit- almost the only time he’ll turn on the light in the house.

I want to thank you all for being such good friends. Our success has been largely enabled and spirited forward the Matanel Fund. Thank you for being with us from the beginning.

Dear Gad, Joelle,
We are so pleased to share with you photos from our annual Kaima seminar, created with the encouragement of the Matanel Foundation.
The two-day seminar brought together 40 adult members of our four-farm Israel farm network

“We are extremely thankful for the support that Matanel has given us over the past three years, enabling us to launch our services in Kiryat Gat, Kiryat Malachi and Ramla/Lod. This support was critical in our ability to serve close to 250 poverty stricken families, and making a significant positive impact on entire neighborhoods.”
Extract from Gabi Nahmani’s thank you letter

Dear Joelle, Gad & Ami

Thank you for inviting me. I would like to say that the only conference I can really enjoy and value

Thank you for a wonderful and inspiring day.

Chers Joëlle et Gad
De retour à New York, j’ai gardé un très bon souvenir de la workshop .
Je veut vous remercier de m’avoir invité.

Dear Joelle,

I was happy and enjoyed participating in the Matanel convention.

I was very impressed by the extent of your achievements

Gad et Joelle,
Merci de nous avoir invitées à participer à cette journée extraordinaire…. c’était parfait!

Avec mes sincères remerciements pour l’accueil et la remarquable convention à laquelle j’ai eu la chance d’assister.J’ai pu comprendre et mesurer ce que Matanel faisait pour offrir à ceux qui en ont le plus besoin l’aide efficace et intelligente qui leur fait prendre leur destin en main.

Dear Ami and Johanna,
​Kol Hakavod on Matanel’s Fourth Retreat in which we had the honor and privilege to participate last Thursday!

We were very impressed by the vast array of diverse programs advancing such original projects from all across Israel

Yael Kalfon, an Advanced Phototherapy Program student tells about her time with Emil

Daniel Treistman, a New Music Dept. student talks about Sylvia Meidan

Ayelet Rotman, a Phototherapy Dept. student tells about her relationship with Yedida

The Phototherapy Dept. student Maskit Hodsman talks about her connection with Yitzhak Kadya

The New Music Dept. student Aya Gabriel begun volunteering with two old women. Michal Zupan is one of them and this is their story

Dear Joelle, Gad and Ami.
It was and honor to finally meet you and to participate in the Matanel inspiring conference.

Dear Joelle, Gad and Ami,
I would like to thank you for inviting me to the 4th Annual Matanel Retreat. It was truly a pleasure and an enlightening experience to hear

Dear Ami,

On behalf of Yael and me, I would like to express our thanks and appreciation for the educative and lovely retreat you have held yesterday. The sessions were useful and gave us an opportunity

Dear Ami and Joanna,
We hope this finds you well.

Though with a slight delay (end of the academic year etc..), we would like to thank you so much for an inspiring retreat:
The passion and enthusiasm

Dear Joelle, Ami and Johanna,

We would like to thank you again for inviting us to attend the inspiring Matanel Conference, and for giving us the chance to present our work with the Netuim students and the elderly, to the conference participants.

I would like to express my appreciation to you for your assistance with school fees for our daughter Liel Aman, who is studying at the Center for Gifted Students at Kineret Academic College.

Extract from a letter of Etay Benovich, projector of IASA – Guatemala school

Over the past 8 months, we have truly made a great something out of nothing. Whereas last year there was no IASA middle school, now there is a thriving, diverse educational community working hand-in-hand with the disadvantaged Guatemala Elementary School.

It is difficult to describe in words this past year. Nonetheless, if we try we will probably think of Freud, defense mechanisms, sleep, developmental stages, types of parenting, first impressions, decision making, learning, the brain, and more and more.