Reading Buddies
Gefen code number: 15389
The Big Brothers Big Sisters of Israel has been operating the "Reading Buddies" program since 2020. The program was built as an emergency response during the COVID-19 epidemic for elementary and high school students.
As part of this program, the high school students or the students of the upper elementary grades, serve as Big Brother or Big Sisters and provide educational and personal support to the students of the lower elementary grades, during their weekly meetings. The purpose of the program is to develop leadership skills among the Big Brothers and Big Sisters who get to give back to society.
Mentors of the program receive accompaniment, guidance and appropriate training in the following topics: leadership, entrepreneurship, social involvement, creative tools for learning and more. In addition, group meetings are held of all mentors with the aim of forming a circle that contributes and influences outside the program as well.
Youths Become Mentors
As part of the Reading Buddies program, we train teenagers and upper elementary school students to be significant mentors, "Big Brothers and Big Sisters" for children in lower elementary grades. We connect youth who are interested in making an impact and are ready to commit to the process for the duration of a year to teach children who need educational and social support.
As part of the activity, the pairs meet once a week. The meetings include joint reading, homework preparation, facilitating conversation and learning while playing. In addition to the educational help, these youngsters become a role model, share with the children their educational experiences and conduct a dialogue with them at eye level from an inclusive and egalitarian place.
*All the photos on the page are real photos taken in real moments and sent to us for various publications. In order to protect the privacy of the people photographed, we still decided to change their names and faces with the help of Ai software. The original images are saved in the system ;)