JERUSALEM — The Azrieli Institute for Educational Empowerment program in Jerusalem was launched last week.
David Azrieli
Representatives of the Azrieli Foundation, the Jerusalem Foundation and the Municipality of Jerusalem gathered at the Jerusalem Cinemateque last Tuesday for the launch.
The empowerment program, already in operation in 14 other cities across Israel, aims to keep high-risk seventh, eighth and ninth graders in school. “This is such a wonderful program, and I am so pleased to partner with the Jerusalem Foundation [to bring it to Jerusalem],” said David Azrieli.
The Azrieli Foundation is contributing 60 per cent of the initial $1 million required to run the program in five Jerusalem-area schools for the next five years. The remaining 40 per cent is being covered jointly by the Jerusalem Foundation and the Municipality of Jerusalem.
The program takes a three-pronged approach: it offers students who have failed at least four subjects, and whose admission to high school is at risk, academic assistance in the core subjects of Hebrew, English and mathematics; social assistance to strengthen communication skills; professional guidance for parents, to teach them how to take a more proactive role in their children’s education.
“We are trying not only to educate the kids to help them matriculate, but to catch them in time before they end up on the street,” said Azrieli. “We catch them at a time of crisis in their lives, when they’re failing in school and headed toward dropping out. This program is aimed at preventing them from dropping out and encouraging them to stay in school.”
Nadim Shibam, director of the community and society projects department at the Jerusalem Foundation, said that “the program has a real chance of success because it targets the unique needs and problems of these children, including significant investment of extra hours for learning, coupling it with personal assistance for parents.”
Over the last year, the Jerusalem Foundation has invested 12 million shekels ($3.3 million US) in educational projects in Jerusalem.
“[This program will give] these children the tools to successfully complete 12 years of schooling,” Shibam said.
The program, which started in Be’er Sheva in 2004 and has assisted more than 1,700 students in schools in Carmiel, Eilat, Kiryat Malachi, Akko, Dimona, Ofakim and Maalot, has a proven record of success.
The Azrieli Foundation’s annual report for the 2008-09 academic year reported that from among 231 graduates last year, 172 (74.2 per cent) were referred to a full matriculation track and 19 (8.2 per cent) were referred to an advanced matriculation track. All students enrolled in the program improved their academic standing by an average of 20 grade points, with 96 per cent of them reporting that the program helped them with their studies. In addition, 70 per cent of participating students said they had more friends, and 92 per cent reported an increase in their parents’ interest in their studies.
According to Meir Avitan, general manager of the Azrieli Foundation, more than 90 per cent of past program participants graduated high school and matriculated, and no program participants dropped out of school.
In Jerusalem, the program will assist 128 seventh- and eighth-grade students at the Greenberg Junior High School in Gilo; Rapaport Junior High and Ort Spanian in Gonen; Bet Hinuch in Katamon; Masorti in Talpiot.
The hope is to continue expanding the program in the future, both to additional schools in Jerusalem and to other cities in Israel.
The Azrieli Foundation also runs programs in architecture, Holocaust education and commemoration, scientific and medical research, developmental disabilities, and the arts.
“Education is foremost, not just to me but in Jewish life. [Jewish] kids hundreds of years ago knew how to read a Siddur and were educated while others were not,” said Azrieli. “The effect that education has on people is enormous.”