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| "Moadonit" |
Five days a week hundreds of children are transported daily from Jaffa's local elementary schools to the Jaffa Institute's Main Activity Center, to the Schatten-Fishbein Childcare Center, to the institute's Jaffa Dalet program site, and to our newest site in neighboring Bat Yam for a wide range of educational support and recreational programs. This daily, comprehensive Moadonit - or after school program - is open from 1:00-7:00 p.m. for children who would otherwise be left unattended to and placed in at-risk situations on Jaffa's streets. Under a supervised setting, children play football and basketball outside on the playground, participate in arts and crafts projects in one of our activities' rooms, participate in the Institute's Musical Minds program, receive a daily hot meal, and so much more.
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The David and Jeni Sieff Afternoon Programs
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Homework Assistance - Schools use homework to achieve a variety of goals that promote students' academic success with each goal demanding a different approach to homework help. Often, when Jaffa's children receive assignments requiring adult assistance, the child will simply not do the homework either because a parent was not home to help them or because they do not feel their home is a structured environment where they can concentrate. The Jaffa Institute provides homework assistance and study skills encouragement to hundreds of children, enabling them to complete homework assignments on time and prepare for examinations.
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Closing the Gaps: English Tutoring - Closing the Gaps is a special initiative designed to provide children from struggling academic districts with basic English speaking, listening, reading, and writing skills. The Institute provides hundreds of needy children with tutoring in English - in their own elementary schools, taught by native English speakers - to enhance their skills and create greater opportunities for higher education and professional careers. While working with children in small groups, the volunteer tutors aim to first make the children more comfortable with English - a language in which few, if any, have even basic literacy. Through songs, games, role-playing, and other interactive activities the children are able to adapt their thinking to see English as a less intimidating, enjoyable subject to learn.
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Bat Yam Activities Site: Gordon Street - Located in a building donated by the Municipality, this program site provides the Jaffa Institute's quality after school programming to disadvantaged children from Jaffa's neighboring city of Bat Yam. Plagued with the same economic hardships as citizens from Jaffa, Bat Yam children now have a supervised afternoon educational and recreational outlet where they receive necessities ranging from help with homework to a hot nutritious meal.
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Bar/Bat Mitzvah Seminars - Whether as a result of indifference or lack of financial capacity, Jaffa and Bat Yam families often overlook their children's Bar or Bat Mitzvahs. The previous is especially true within the Russian and Ethiopian immigrant communities. In honor of this religious and cultural milestone, the Jaffa Institute provides group and individualized study sessions that teach our Jewish children the significance of the important event and help them prepare for their own Bar or Bat Mitzvah. The program culminates each year with a trip to Jerusalem and a celebration in honor of all the children who became Bar and Bat Mitzvah during the year.
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Additional Enrichment Programs
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Training Tomorrow's Leaders - The impact of the Jaffa Institute's Training Tomorrow's Leaders program cannot be over emphasized. The lack of organized youth activities in Jaffa, and the rise of single-parent families and families with two working parents have all reduced the number of and time spent with role models. While the importance of a teen-aged role model should not be excluded, the larger, most significant impact of Training Tomorrow's Leaders is seen in the Junior Volunteer Corps, Counselors-in-Training and Junior Counselor Corps. Employing these young alumni of the Jaffa Institute has allowed us to continue to guide our former students and provide them with the safe, nurturing environment they grew up in, away from the streets, with the opportunity to grow personally and professionally. Their employment also allows these youths to acquire knowledge, skills, attitudes and values they will need to succeed in their professional careers. As former participants, they are able to forge closer and more effective bonds with the Jaffa Institute children; relating to their home environment and the standard problems that plague the streets of Jaffa.
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Horizons - Through this innovative initiative, groups of young people from Jaffa and the Bet Shemesh Residential Center, ranging in ages from 13-17, are sent to historic sites and locales in the United Kingdom for a cultural experience unlike any other. The groups participate in expert-guided tours of London and its surrounding areas while taking in shows in London's famous West End, visiting museums, and stopping at historical points-of-interest. The young travelers have the opportunity to meet young people from the local Jewish community, and to broaden their horizons to a point unimaginable from their depressed home environments. For most, if not all of these young people, the week that they spend in the U.K. is literally "the time of their lives."
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