Our Story

For the past three months the six American volunteers on the Yahel Social Change Program have been living and working in Shapira, an immigrant Ethiopian neighborhood in Gedera, Israel. Our main volunteer work has been in collaboration with a local community empowerment organization, Friends by Nature, or Haverim B'Teva in Hebrew.  Our activities include tutoring English through the "Homework at Home" program, directing hiking and leadership youth groups, and building community gardens.  At the beginning of the year, Haverim B'Teva presented us with an idea of a program they wanted to develop formalized programming in the community garden.  The garden is one of the most successful programs, drawing more than 30 people from the community during it's weekly working time.  Many people in the community used to work the land in Ethiopia, so the program provides a unique opportunity for them to reconnect with the land and serve as role models to their children and youth in the community.  The garden serves as a source of pride and brings together all generations of the Ethiopian-Israeli community in Shapira, as well as members of the greater Gedera community.

The Impact

We have identified the garden as providing a great sense of strength and opportunity for Shapira and are creating a program aimed at continuing to strengthen the garden. In the garden, the economic and racial barriers that confront the community are set aside as people work together to help the garden grow. The program will help add structure to this already working platform.  After volunteering each week for three months, we observed a lot of young adults who came to the garden week after week, but at times didn't have activities to participate in.  We decided to create a program that hires members of the community who have skills in certain areas (i.e. carpentry, pottery, arts & crafts) to lead programs every week for the youth.  These leaders will be from the Shapira community, and  will serve as positive role models for youth in the garden which will transfer to becoming leaders outside of gardening hours. 

What We Need 

Our goal is $3,000. Your donations will provide a stipend for the professionals that are hired and all of the professionals will be from the Shapira neighborhood. We will work once a week for up to six months. The additional funds will be used to buy materials for programming. These materials include construction supplies, paper supplies, arts and craft supplies, books and seeds for the nursery.  By giving to this cause, you will be strengthening and uplifting a new immigrant community in Israel and connecting Ethiopian-Israelis to the land of Israel, as well as empowering them to use their skills from Ethiopia in gardening and working the land.  

Other Ways You Can Help

Help us get the word out! Please pass along this page to anyone you know that might be interested.  If you have any questions about this project, or anything related to Yahel Service Learning or Friends by Nature, please let us know!  We would love to connect with you.

Please remember, any contribution however big or small will enable us to provide positive change in our wonderful community of Gedera.