2009 PROGRAM ACTIVITIES
The year 2009 began in the midst of a number of significant crises. The stock market crash, the Madoff crisis and the war in southern Israel, demanded a reassessment of our future as a non-profit organization dependent predominantly upon private funding. Upon recognizing the significant challenges that lay ahead, we set about a plan of action suited to surviving the deep economic downturn and the change in philanthropic behavior both overseas and locally. In addition, we became even more creative thinkers, using the many talents and devotion of our staff. Now, six months down the road, it has become quite evident that our organization provides a critical community resource that demands forward motion rather than hibernating until the storm passes. Other organizations constantly seek out our professional staff and organizational assistance to create new programming to answer unmet needs in the community. Therefore, we find ourselves not only surviving, but flourishing and are proud to report that we recently received the prestigious Mayor of Jerusalem’s Award for Excellence in Volunteerism.
Update of program activities
New joint programs with other community organizations
 The “El Halev” organization that provides programming targeted at abuse prevention. Together, we have created a seminar series in raising awareness regarding abuse prevention. This seminar consists of three meetings in which the pairs become familiar with the art of self-defense and act out responses to potential attackers. A teen mentoring program conducted together with the Joint Distribution Committee and the Nesiya Institute that inspires young people from diverse backgrounds to explore Judaism and Israel as resources for their personal growth. This highly successful program consisted of 14 Little Brothers and Sisters who met with their Big Brothers and Sisters between the ages of 16-18 at the Clubhouse as a group. The program allowed children to have the group experience as well as the personal attention of their teen mentor. Future plans: The Israel Joint Distribution committee is interested in using our professional expertise to operate a pilot project in which families serve as mentors to children and teens from single parent families. BBBS has used this model in the past with a number of children and it has proven to be successful in providing positive role modeling to both the children and their families.Big Brothers Big Sisters Clubhouse
The Clubhouse continues to be a center of activity and a meeting place for pairs from Jerusalem and Gush Etzion. This year’s activities have included jewelry making for teenage girls, a bubble seminar for all ages, a Purim party, a falafel-making evening, a barbeques, movies, arts and crafts afternoons and gardening activities.
Tel Aviv branch
Our Tel Aviv branch is moving along steadily and volunteer recruitment efforts constitute a large part of staff time as there are currently 82 children waiting for a Big Brother or Sister. Following is an update of our activities:
After a year and a half of working in the Tel Aviv area, it has become clear that if we are to attract a significant number of university students to our program we must offer some type of stipend or scholarship due to the fact that so many volunteer opportunities include such incentives. Our staff is in contact with a number of foundations that supply grants to students who volunteer in the community. Our population of children now includes children of foreign workers and refugees from Darfur. In fact, we are evaluating partnering with an organization that works directly with refugees in helping them to adjust to Israeli society. We are working on three partnerships with the Alma Institute for Secular Learning, Hillel and The Kibbutz Seminary. One of our Board members has become very active in helping us to connect with community resources and find sponsors for our activities. This has been extremely helpful in moving activities forward in the Tel Aviv area. We will soon be organizing a Steering Committee to focus on the specific needs of children and teens in the Tel Aviv area. The Committee will include staff, Board members and community representatives.Three “Fun Days” have been provided so far including:
A picnic for Tu’Bshvat A Purim Party A campfire for Lag Ba’omer at a local kibbutzFuture plans include a summer pool party and a hiking trip.
Gush Etzion Branch
39 pairs were serviced during 2009 in our Gush Etzion Branch. Besides participating in Jerusalem Fun Days during Hanuka and Purim, 55 participants attended a Martial Arts Fun Day with the “El Halev” organization. In addition to their weekly meetings, pairs have the option to meet in the local BBBS Clubhouse, or to travel into the city to take advantage of the wide variety of mini Fun Days and activities that take place at the Jerusalem Clubhouse.
Public Relations and Communications
This year, our marketing campaign expanded to include our first fundraising gala that was held on June 4th at the Cinemateque in Jerusalem. The standing-room-only crowd of close to 400 people included the Mayor of Jerusalem who gave a short speech regarding the significant impact of our activities in the city of Jerusalem. The Magical Mystery Tour Concert – a very convincing and fun Beatles band – had everyone on their feet dancing. In addition to numerous sponsors for the event, new marketing materials were produced including a four minute movie about BBBS in Hebrew and in English. The huge success of this evening gave us the confidence to continue delving into the world of self-generated income. In addition to numerous radio spots, newspaper articles and advertisements, BBBS has entered into a variety of partnerships in the corporate sector and with other not-for-profit organizations.
Volunteer Training
We are currently in the process of translating a volunteer training manual from Big Brothers Big Sisters of Los Angeles. The manual was edited in order to suit the needs of our mentors here in Israel and we plan to market this handbook to other mentoring programs in Israel with similar needs.
Personal Assistance Fund
The difficult economic situation has further complicated the lives of economically distressed families in the program and our Personal Assistance Fund is critical to their well-being. More and more, we find that families in the program need our concrete assistance alongside the mentoring relationship. We have been reaching out to families in a variety of ways such as psychological assessments for children who urgently need to be taken out of the home. Often community services are burdened to the point of not being able to provide necessary emergency services and so we try to help as much as we are able. Many children in our program are destined to spend the summer roaming the streets or sitting in front of the television while their mothers work all day, therefore, we have enrolled many children in summer camps. We helped pay the rent for a teen at risk who was living off the streets, and we sent a family with no relatives and no social support network in Israel to the Ukraine to see relatives who they had not seen in six years. |
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