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COMMUNITY REVISITED
by Marion Fischel, Jerusalem Post, Feb. 17, 2005
Several fifteen year olds sit together atop a row of gym mattresses on a parquet floor. They act scenes for their coach who encourages them and criticizes them constructively. They joke, they interject, they start the scene again.
"Sorry," says a girl, "I laughed."
"That's fine," says the teacher. "Use your laugh, don't let it be a mistake that stops the flow, use it to your best advantage. Fit it in with the scene, this is improvisation after all."
The teenagers are part of a drama workshop that Ofra Amichai, 26, runs at the Emek Refaim Merkaz Tarbut Amim Lenoar (The All Nations Youth Culture Center), every Sunday afternoon.
"I want them to learn to read more, to be curious, to attempt to understand, to develop confidence in themselves, and above all, to feel safe and free," Amichai says.
The workshop is part of the aternative, creative community Yotzer Or, developed by Uri Alayon. Ayalon, a recently ordained Conservative rabbi, has dedicated his entire adult life dedicated to the dream of improving the lot of his fellow Jew. He has been working on creating Yotzer Or for four years. The idea behind providing all these services, he says, is "to empower the people."
For NIS 40 a month - and for free if they can't pay - Talpiot residents can send their children to tutoring, story telling, arts and crafts and drama activities, participate themselves in a weekly class with Ayalon, and join in communal holiday activities.This in a neighborhood where an estimated 80 percent of its 35,000 residents are considered to be socio-economically depressed.
Michal Izkowitz-Whine, 26, who studies at the Revivim educational program at the Hebrew University, is the tutorial program coordinator for Yotzer Or.
Izkowitz-Whine says that Talpiot residents are put in touch with the Yotzer Or programs by their social workers who are aware of academically -weaker children whose parents cannot afford extra tutoring.
The one-to-one tutoring is currently aimed at primary school children and is divided into two sections: English and general. The general tutoring, which is mainly extra math, and helping with homework and studying for exams, takes place every Thursday from 3-4:30 p.m. at the Beit Lazarus community center in Talpiot, where most of Yotzer Or's activities are held.
Sixteen year olds from the Masorti School in Arnona do the tutoring under the umbrella of community projects that are offered by their school. Interestingly, these tutors themselves are among the academically weaker students; thus the very job they are doing to help others is also helping them build confidence.
This is the main philosophy of Yotzer Or, says Ayalon: "community empowerment."
"The idea," says Izkowitz-Whine, "is like having a big brother, someone who loves you unconditionally. He gives to you without any context, with no agenda. And the children have a safe warm place to come to."
English classes take place every Monday for an hour and a half after school. In this case tutors are older and are selected from a variety of short-term programs for overseas students. Recently 18 and 19-year olds on a six-month Nativ program from the USY Conservative Youth. Presently the program has four tutors who are studying at the Pardes Institute and two from the Schechter Institute, in their 20s and 30s.
Story hour takes place once week and is attended by younger children, mainly Ethiopian, who often have no books at all in their homes. Once a week, Amichai reads to them and encourages them to look at books.
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