Children from the community of asylum seekers and economic migrants have significant educational gaps when compared with their Israeli peers, as a result of attending unsatisfactory early-childhood frameworks, difficulties in language acquisition, and difficult living conditions and emotional distress.
Many families in the community live in basic survival conditions, forcing parents to work long hours. The solution provided by the community is “pirate” daycares operated by community members. These frameworks are often characterized by physical, emotional and educational neglect, which increase the children’s educational and developmental gaps.
The children spend long hours alone, unsupervised by parents, and often roam the streets, exposed to negative influences. Many of them live in single-parent families, in which the task of providing for everyone falls exclusively on the mother, with no family support system. These conditions exacerbate the dangers in the children’s lives and create many needs.
Objectives:
The Society for Advancement of Education feels it has an ethical imperative to support children at ongoing risk, on the margins of Israel’s social periphery, and to enable them to acquire learning skills that will form the basis of their adult development. The learning centers’ purpose is to provide the children with a safe environment that will support the learning processes necessary for their age, reduce educational gaps, and diagnose learning and emotional difficulties where necessary.
● Reinforcement of core subjects – English, mathematics and Hebrew
● Acquisition of learning skills and strategies
● Homework assistance
● Social activities that support learning processes
● Ongoing contact with parents and providing them with guidance activities
● Ongoing contact with schools
Project Description:
The professional model for the learning centers is based upon collaboration between the municipality, the community and the SAE. In this way, we work within the heart of the community and combine professional bodies in order to provide the children with an adequate social and educational response.
The centers are operated by a learning coordinator and volunteers who have received training and guidance. Professional staff training will be provided by both the SAE’s learning coordinator and a social worker from the municipality, in order to provide a response to both the children’s educational and emotional needs. Within the centers’ frameworks, the children receive nourishment, equipment, learning materials and additional enrichment activities.
Partners:
Mesila – The Tel Aviv Municipality’s Center for Treatment, Assistance and Information for the Foreign Community
The Jerusalem Municipality’s Department of Education
The Yarden School, Tel Aviv
JACC – The Jerusalem African Community Center