Extraordinary Goings-On in Afula 

Extraordinary things are going on behind the colorful walls of the EMUNAH Sarah Herzog Children’s Center on a quiet residential street in the lower Galilee town of Afula. Teenagers are running a successful Judaica gift enterprise; youngsters of all ages are vying to be part of an entertainment troupe that has cut its own CDs and travels far and wide to bring Israeli song and dance to appreciative audiences; Menachem and Chen, graduates of the Center who served in the Gaza War pay a visit home to inspire their younger siblings; and a small, intense group of 12th graders mull over their day as Junior Counselors.

Such activity would be breathtaking for children from normal circumstances, but for youngsters who arrived at the EMUNAH Center with severe emotional and behavioral problems from the most dysfunctional families, the transition is even more stunning. Take Moriya Elimelech, for example. Today, Moriya, 16, is the marketing manager for the Center’s Creative Arts Store. When Moriya arrived at the Children’s Center in 2004, she was a surly, uncooperative pre-teen with a host of behavioral issues and parents who were unable to cope. It was impossible for Moriya to function in a regular classroom, and it was only through years of painstaking love and care from her house-parents and the intensive therapy she received at the EMUNAH Center that she now attends the local Amal High School and is a role model for many of the younger children.

The Creative Arts Store where Moriya works started out in 2003 as an art project initiated by art therapy instructor, Ayelet Fabal. Under the label, EMUNAH Creative Arts, students design and produce beautiful top-quality decorative items including mezuzot, Pesach plates, challah trays, candlesticks, trays and decorative glass and ceramic pomegranate dishes. The creativity and professional presentation rivals anything seen in the best Jerusalem or Tel Aviv gift shops. “The skills the students are picking up from this project are amazing,” exclaims Director Shlomo Kessel. “The discipline of seeing a project through from beginning to end, recognizing and using their creative ability and getting the satisfaction of a finished product valued by others is just stupendous.”

One indication of the quality of the Creative Arts Store is the response it has received from some of Israel’s largest corporations. This past Chanukah, Orange, the giant cell phone company, placed an order for 200 chanukiyot as give-aways for their employees. Tnuva, Israel’s biggest dairy conglomerate, ordered dozens of the decorative milk pitchers that students had labeled “Chalav Al Hazman”—a play on words of the slang expression, “Chaval al Hazman,” meaning “outstanding” or “very cool.”

Students who want to be involved in the Creative Arts Store must be over 16 years old, since they receive a salary for their after-school work on the project. After submitting a resume and sitting for an interview—skills their counselors help prepare them for—the students are “hired” and commit to working a certain number of hours per week in return for minimum wage. Some will work under supervision on the creative production side in the airy, tidy studio in the middle of the Children’s Center campus, where display shelves showcase dozens of items in various stages of development. Others, like Moriya, will explore the marketing of their products and be responsible for advertising and packaging, while other students make sure the items get to their destination and are paid for in a timely fashion. [To see the full range of Creative Arts Store products, visit www.EMUNAHafula.org]

Just as the Creative Arts Store has provided a meaningful and productive outlet for the handicraft creativity of some of the older students, the “Emunotes” performance group has done the same in the music and dance sphere for some thirty-five EMUNAH Center girls. Under the leadership of music director Chico Hajaj, the “Emunotes” have developed into a highly accomplished and in-demand ensemble that perform at events all over Israel and toured in the United States last year. “We see that the stage arts provide our kids with an excellent opportunity to build self-esteem and experience success,” notes Shlomo. “Having the ‘Emunotes’ as part of our life here has changed the atmosphere at the Children’s Center,” he adds. There’s great competition to get accepted to the troupe, Shlomo relates, and the fact that they’re so well-received wherever they appear is a real boost to the morale of all the students for whom the EMUNAH Center is home.

Rehearsals are serious affairs and demand commitment and lots of concentration, but the pay-offs are great in the amount of positive attention and praise each student receives. It’s easy to see the pride in the girls’ eyes when they’re up on stage, dressed in one of the array of colorful costumes they use in their performances. The group has also released two CDs of their work that showcase the hard work they’ve put in with the choir director to produce an uplifting series of popular Israeli songs replete with harmonies and lively backing.

Like Moriya Elimelech, some of the older girls in the “Emunotes” are also part of the Junior Counselor program that started last year. Like the Creative Arts and the “Emunotes,” it is another of the Empowerment Programs that Shlomo and his staff feel are the key to rehabilitating kids who have never experienced success, motivation or positive feedback. Every year, eight senior students are chosen to serve as junior counselors. They are paid a token amount to help out with the younger kids—in the dining room, on the playground or getting them ready for bed. They in turn are supervised by the assistant director, Emanuel Ben Szabo, and receive instruction in leadership skills and organization. Each month, based on their performance, one of the counselors is chosen as Employee of the Month and gets to take one of their friends to a local restaurant. Along with the puppet and horse-riding therapy and a petting zoo, the programs of the Children’s Center have a gone a long way to creating a calmer, more orderly atmosphere where children have the chance to turn their lives around and thrive despite the extraordinarily difficult family situations they come from. “Now we find we can really communicate with the kids,” notes Shlomo. “We can tell them off if we have to and they don’t go berserk,” he says.

Recently, more children from large families have been referred to the Children’s Center. There are currently two distressed families each with six children who now make the Children’s Center their home. In some cases, there are siblings as young as three or four years of age who have been sent to the Children’s Center. In addition, the Children’s Center has now been designated to take in students other institutions have refused to take, or who have been expelled from other residential settings. In the residential groups at the EMUNAH Center, there are four staff to every group of seven students, so the kids are able to experience what Shlomo emphasizes as one of the most important necessities for child development: “Every child needs one person who loves them more than anyone else.” For the first time in their lives, the children are able to go to bed at night without fear, to dream without nightmares, Shlomo explains. They’re awakened in the morning by caring adults who provide the love, support and stability they so desperately need. “The aim of our every action and every word is to let the youngsters know we believe in them. That’s how we can help them develop the confidence and tools they need to break the cycle of distress,” Shlomo stresses.

There are some two hundred children between the ages of three to eighteen at EMUNAH’s Afula home. More than sixty percent require special education and attend forty different schools. Shlomo and his staff must keep track of all of them and deal with their parents as well. The home is operating with a very large deficit and Shlomo doesn’t know where he’ll cut next. There’s one maintenance person to service the entire campus, one cook who is responsible for producing 300 meals three times per day and one nurse who is paid for one hour per day and works for four. Renovations of the decades-old dining room have been put on hold due to the economic turndown but Shlomo still manages to use the space to host regular “family days” to encourage parents to remain part of their children’s lives.

Despite all the challenges, the success in turning lives around are what keep Shlomo and his staff going. Moriya and her marketing crew are even talking of a new business initiative that would carry on after she graduates and heads off to National Service.

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