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Projects
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There are approximately 800 Ethiopian Israeli families currently living in Haifa. These immigrants live in five neighborhoods: Neve-Paz (Halisa); Neve-Yosef; western Haifa; Hadar; and Kiryat Haim. The majority of immigrants reside in Halisa and Hadar, with more than 300 Ethiopian Israeli children living in these neighborhoods. Hiyot carried out a needs assessment among these families and discovered that many of the children need tutoring and many of the parents need basic guidance vis-?-vis their parenting. The type of guidance these parents need includes: how to take care of their children; learning about Israeli culture; understanding Hebrew; how to help their children with their studies; and how to be involved with their children's education.
Following a great deal of effort, Hiyot opened an after-school enrichment center with the aim of:
- Assisting children with their homework in English, math, Hebrew and other subjects.
- Providing enriching cultural activities for the children.
- Strengthening parenting skills by engaging parents in enriching cultural activities which are carried out by student mentors.
- Providing each child with an individual student mentor who attempts to identify individual obstacles that the child is experiencing in his studies.
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- General:
The first few years of a child's life are critical for his future development. Consequently, there is a great deal of emphasis placed on early intervention that is tailored to the needs of each individual child. This type of intervention is critical for the development of every child, but even more so for Ethiopian Israeli children. In addition to the general needs of this population, we also have to take into consideration the cultural differences that exist between parents and their children as well as the fact that Ethiopian Israeli children (up to age three) usually spend most of their time at home with their mothers and do not typically attend daycare centers or other educational frameworks. Furthermore, research findings indicate that Ethiopian Israeli parents do not possess the necessary skills to promote their children's development in the educational realm.
Only by creating partnerships between the child, parent and educational, therapeutic, social and community frameworks will work methods be developed that will encourage the child and his family to successfully cope with the challenges of living in a modern society.
Hiyat counselors visit the homes of more than 50 Ethiopian Israeli families in Haifa each week with the aim of:
- Empowering the mother to act as an educator and social change agent for her young child.
- Increasing the involvement of fathers in promoting their children's development.
- Assisting in the healthy development of each baby.
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An important and painful issue facing the Ethiopian Israeli community is that of single-parent families. Single-parent families emerge following the separation or divorce of the couple or following the abandonment or death of one of the parents. The number of single-parent families among the Ethiopian Israeli community has increased significantly since this community's immigration to Israel. This is due to increased divorced rates among community members, caused by their difficult acclimation to life in Israel.
We are currently in our third year of operating the Empowering Single Mothers Project. Project goals include:
- To strengthen and empower single mothers from the Ethiopian Israeli community.
- To raise awareness among Ethiopian Israeli single mothers about their role and status as single mothers.
- To provide single mothers from the Ethiopian Israeli community with knowledge about adolescence and its ramifications for relations between adolescents and their parents.
- To educate Ethiopian Israeli single mothers about the types of support which are available to them and inform them about how they can take advantage of this support.
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The growing number of Ethiopian-Israeli children-at-risk is a calamity waiting to happen. The critical stage of adolescence (ages 13 to 18) is a period during which alarmingly large numbers of Ethiopian-Israeli children become 'at-risk' - at risk of dropping out of school, partaking in criminal behavior, using drugs or alcohol, and being on the fringes of Israeli society.
The Ethiopian population in Israel is now over 120,000 people, over 5,000 of them live in Haifa and surroundings (Tirat Hacarmel, Kiryat Biualik, Kiryat Motzkin, Kiryat Yam and).
The youth outreach centers aim to positively impact the lives of over 550 Ethiopian youth at risk in 4 northern cities. The aim is to provide the youth with a positive, safe and normative informal meeting place, prevent youth vagrancy, alcohol and drug use and support each child personal development.
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