Completed Projects

Ulpena L’banot

The Naot Avraham Ulpena (Ulpena L’banot) in Arad is a religious Zionist secondary school providing residential education for girls from all over Southern Israel.

The three hundred pupils are both able-bodied and disabled, from privileged backgrounds and from poorer ones, the daughters of new immigrants and of long-established families. All are treated equally and given the opportunity of benefiting from a superb education. The girls are shown the importance of working and living in the modern world whilst maintaining their religious identity.

The Ulpena prides itself in providing a “home away from home” family atmosphere. Its pupils are known throughout Arad for their willingness to volunteer for any and every organisation that needs their help.

Avraham Kaminer, the Director of the Arad Foundation wrote, “As the former Deputy Mayor and founder and Director of the Arad Foundation, I have worked closely over the years with the principals and board of the Ulpena and have nothing but the utmost respect for those who head this remarkable institution”.

With your help, JNF UK has given £150,000 to help the Ulpena complete a new dormitory building which will house 150 young women. The dormitory building is completely wheelchair accessible and, in addition to the accommodation, provides a student lounge and space for after-school activities and modern living accommodation for the dormitory counsellors (who are currently living in caravans).

This is an on-going project and we have now committed to helping the Ulpena create a landscaped garden around the new building.

We hope that you will help us to improve this remarkable educational facility by donating now.

If you would like to know more about this project or visit it, click here to email us now.

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Or Movement

The founders of the Or Movement are putting into practice their belief that developing new communities and expanding existing ones in less populated areas is a mission of national importance. Israel’s long-term security and economic survival is dependent upon its ability to truly settle all areas within its borders. Development of these regions will lead to better demographic distribution, improved national security and a higher standard of living for Israelis. It will also advance national objectives and positively impact all of Israeli society. Founded in 2000, the Or Movement’s mission is to populate and develop the Negev and the Galilee regions.

To help fulfil its pledge to bring life to the desert, JNF has supported development at three settlements founded by the Or Movement:

Sansana

Sansana was founded in 1999 on Israel’s Independence Day. The name “Sansana” means ‘basis of the date’s palm’ and is featured in the Song of Songs. Sansana is mentioned in the Bible as one of the settlements belonging to the tribe of Judah from the period of Joshua. Today, the new town, 15 km northeast of Be’er Sheva, is currently home to 65 families including some 250 children with a goal of growing to 300 families.

To help establish firm roots for the community and to beautify the area, JNF sponsored a promenade (‘tayelet’), dedicated to the memory of two brothers whose sister was one of the first settlers in the new town.

Givot Bar

Located some 20 km from Beer Sheva, the first thirty families moved from their temporary JNF caravans into newly-built permanent homes in January 2004. These were families looking for a challenge: on a personal and national level, an opportunity to realize a dream – to design and build from scratch, with their own hands and vision a new community and village in Israel. In pursuit of this dream, these young families are prepared to ‘rough it’ for several months – tackling extra shifts at guard duty and living in cramped caravans on an open hillside. In the next ten years, the community hopes to grow to 600 families.

In these modern times, it is refreshing and heartening to follow the story of Givot Bar – the story of young adults literally building their country and sacrificing present comfort for a brighter future. The synagogue donated by JNF UK has just been dedicated and the village of Givot Bar is rapidly taking shape, but we still have a lot of work to accomplish. We hope you will help us.

Kramim

Pioneer families from the north of Israel are moving to Kibbutz Kramim, to help swell the numbers of people living there. The kibbutz was established 1980, but until it was ‘privatised’ in 2006, had only 15 families living on it. Since then, another fifteen families have joined and JNF has provided pre-fabricated homes for them to live in while they build permanent homes. Ultimately, the kibbutz hopes to be 100 families strong. The community is based near Beer Sheva.

If you would like to know more about this project or visit it, click here to email us now.

To donate online, please click here.

Schaller Medical Centre

During the night and over the weekend, when the doors of the city’s regular medical clinics are closed, the people of Arad and the surrounding areas had been left with no proper medical service for many years. Emergency cases occurring outside of ‘office hours’ had to be taken to the Soroka Medical Centre in Beer Sheva – a journey of 45 minutes along roads of varying quality.

With the assistance of JNF UK and other organisations, the Schaller Medical Centre was opened in September 2004 and is one of the most important projects undertaken in Arad in recent years. Its design was conceived by leading Israeli medical and architectural authorities who consulted with international specialists. The Centre consists of a spacious lobby, children’s play area, emergency rooms, trauma room, orthopaedic casualty rooms, a gynaecology clinic and an ultra-sound and x-ray department.

On-going funds are needed for its operation and expansion. To donate, please click here.

If you would like to know more about this project or visit it, click here to email us now.

Givol

Situated in Givat Olga, near Hadera, this democratic school is in a very deprived area, where the school kitchens provide a hot meal each day, not only for the pupils, but for their families too.

As you can imagine, the facilities at the school are very basic and the JNF’s aim was to assist each child achieve their fundamental rights of an education in a safe environment.

In 2009, with your support and through the JNF Israeli Forum, we funded a building refurbishment programme, additional teachers and educational programmes. We provided funds to fit out a computer room with more modern equipment to enhance the children’s learning experience.

Thank you for helping us to provide a safer and more stimulating school environment.

If you would like to know more about this project, click here to email us now.

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Yerucham Family Centre

Built in the middle of the Negev desert, 20 miles south-east of Beersheva, Yerucham was established as a development town in 1951. It has one of Israel’s highest unemployment rates, few facilities and is a very challenging place to live.
Yet young people are moving here, through an organisation called Ayalim. They are true 21st Century Zionists.

Making the unforgiving desert of the Negev liveable is vital to Israel as it aims to reduce the over- crowding in the centre of the country. And that means not just creating new communities but making the existing ones, such as Yerucham, more attractive places to live.

The students and young volunteers of Ayalim have had a huge impact on Yerucham. Each comes to live in the town and gives 500 hours of community service and physical work over a year. They organise activities for children and families in Yerucham, and their youthful energy brings new life to the town.

Now, in partnership with Ayalim and with your generous support, JNF UK has completed a new Student Village in Yerucham, with a Family Centre and Club as the first project. By day it is being fully used as a family centre where adults and pensioners come to socialise and to attend classes.  After school hours, the students work with children and youths, offering tutoring and activities. In the evenings it is a club for the young people of Yerucham.

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Negba & Masu’ot Yitshak Reservoirs

The future of Israel lies in the Negev. It has 60% of Israel’s land area, but only 7% of its population. Successfully developing the Negev is vital if Israel is to reduce the over-crowding in the centre of the country.

In the north-west of the Negev there are two communities, Masu’ot Yitshak, a religious moshav, and Negba, a secular kibbutz. They have achieved miracles, growing fruit, vegetables and flowers for sale in Israel and abroad. But even miracles need help.

The two communities depend on water from their neighbouring reservoirs, both built 40 years ago. They are in poor condition, with the result that they lose more than half their stored water through leakage.

In a year such as this with a drought, crops have died and others have been unable to be planted. The JNF has therefore decided to begin the vital work to upgrade these reservoirs, at a cost of £1 million, so that they can produce four times as much water.

“Here every drop of water is precious, it’s like gold” Yoni Somaniov left his native village in Ethiopia at the age of 16, sneaked across the border and hid in Sudan for more than a year before being spirited to Israel by the Mossad in 1990. As a child, he had helped his family raise goats and sheep and plough the fields of wheat and corn. But it wasn’t until he came to work in the avocado orchards at Masu’ot Yitzhak that he learned to treasure every last drop of water. “My village in Ethiopia was in an area irrigated by a huge river. Water was never a problem. Here every drop of water is precious, it’s like gold. We have to be so careful and there is just not enough. The new reservoir will make it much easier for us. It’s very important.”

“This has been a terrible year for rainfall, with only 70% of the yearly average” Yigal Raviv is the general manager of Dganim, the agricultural partnership established between his moshav and the neighbouring Kibbutz Negba. Yigal says that the upgrading of Negba and Masu’ot reservoirs is vital. “This has been a terrible year for rainfall, with only 70% of the yearly average. We were unable to irrigate half our fields, which severely limited our ability to use them for profitable crops and we fear that by next year those fields will have become so dry we will be unable to use them at all. “I want to introduce new crops – carrots, parsley, tomatoes, olives and more avocados, but to expand we need the reservoirs.”

“Once the new reservoir is finished, I will be able to double the size of this orchard.” Azriel Ben-Dov is 81 years old and was the man responsible for building the Masu’ot Yitzhak reservoir 40 years ago. Back then, it took him a decade to persuade community leaders that the winter flood waters of Nachal Lachish could be collected and used for farming. Today he rises at 4.15am each morning, walks, studies and prays before setting out for a full day’s work at 8am on his beloved avocado trees. “I have 125 acres of avocados,” says Azriel. “Before we built the reservoir, we had none. The flood water we collect there is the best for avocados, which are very sensitive to salinity and temperature. The reservoir is very old though and leaks badly. If it could be improved, I would be able to produce double the crop for new export markets like the former Soviet Union.”

If you would like to know more about this project or visit it, click here to email us now.

To donate online, please click here.

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Aleh Negev

Aleh is a non-profit Israeli organisation which believes that every child, regardless of the severity of their physical or cognitive disability, has the right to benefit from the best available care and to develop to his or her fullest potential.

Aleh Negev is a rehabilitation village for severely impaired children and young adults, with physical and mental disabilities. It is based near Ofakim in the Negev, although people from all over Israel are treated. Aleh has created a community that meets the needs of severely disabled people throughout their lives, giving them a home and a social network when, without Aleh, they might have lived in a hospital or be isolated at home with a family who were struggling to manage the financial, physical and mental burdens that disability brings.

When construction is finished, there will be 500 residents with disabilities and it is planned another 12,000 children and young adults with disabilities will be seen each year on an outpatient basis. Modern and technologically advanced buildings house professional staff, residents and visiting relatives. In addition, the village provides vocational training, occupational therapy and medical facilities.

The development of Aleh Negev dovetails perfectly with JNF’s Negev Challenge. The Negev offers space, freedom and a sense of well-being bestowing a quality of life on these severely disabled young adults that it would be difficult to emulate elsewhere. The village is attracting doctors, care givers, teachers and others, stimulating the local economy and playing a vital role in lowering the high unemployment rate in the area. JNF UK has already given £1,000,000 to help complete Aleh Negev.

If you would like to know more about this project or visit it, click here to email us now.

Shomriya

To cement the JNF’s commitment to helping to create communities in the Negev, we have completed a school (at a cost of £400,000) in the new town of Shomriya, in the northern Negev, home to some 100 families previously living in Atzmona in Gaza.

On 10 August, 2009, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Minister of Science, Rabbi Prof. Daniel Hershkowitz and JNF UK Chairman, Samuel Hayek participated in a ceremony dedicating the School in Shomriya in memory of Ruth and Harry Lewis of Hove, England.

This religious community are relishing the opportunity of beginning their lives again in a place that links our biblical past with the challenges of the future. To quote one of their community leaders, “every day more and more bricks are coming and building Shomriya, more and more ways are paved, more families are coming and more and more hopes for a big future comes to reality.”

The JNF, with your support, are proud to have helped to make the school in Shomriya a reality.

Help us to make other dreams come true. To make a donation now, please click here.

If you would like to know more about this project or visit it, click here to email us now.

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