Dear Friends,
You would think that without the usual distractions of commuting to work, travelling abroad, and socialising we’d have had time to sit back and relax a little. Not a chance! At Youth Aliyah Child Rescue, we have been busier than ever as we continue to adapt to everchanging restrictions and turn them into opportunities.
For the children who call our youth villages home, life has never been more complicated. That’s no small statement for young people who have already endured unspeakable hardship, whether due to extreme poverty, abuse, neglect, substance abuse, or a combination of factors. Whilst we have hunkered down and figured out how to get our own families through this ordeal, the incredible staff of the youth villages and mechina programmes has worked within a shifting landscape to provide stability to Israel’s most vulnerable children.
We knew we had to step up for our children, now more than ever, and so we quickly mobilised our amazing Fundraising Committee and started holding virtual events. We’ve had a lot of fun meeting online whilst raising desperately needed funds to help our children through this pandemic. We have managed to purchase laptops so that children can participate in distance learning when the government required them to return to their family homes during lockdowns. We have sent money to provide modest living stipends to young graduates who were just beginning to live independently, supporting themselves through university with restaurant and hotel jobs that have now disappeared. Your support is allowing these resilient young people to remain on the academic paths that they have worked so hard to get onto. And we have worked with a couple of inspiring bnei mitzvah in the UK to support their fundraising projects for our charity.
We invite you to join us in any way you might enjoy. Sign up for our upcoming events (we have some excellent ones planned!), join the Fundraising Committee (or form your own), be inspired by our bnei mitzvah and start fundraising for us (we can help). You might find, as we have, that getting busy makes the days go by much faster.
We look forward to seeing you all again soon. Until then, take good care of yourselves and each other, and I hope you have a very happy Chanukah!
Daliah Mehdi
Chief Executive