Otzma Volunteers Shiri Berger (right) and Jessica Goldstein in action

We are into our fourth week here in Arad as opportunities keep manifesting themselves. I am currently working in a wonderfully warm volunteer site caled MeLev V'Lev, where a mentally and physically challenged population comes to work their creative spirits instead of remaining at home under-utilized. Here they assemble crafts, get weekly exercise and social interaction as well as other facilitating ammenities. I especially love working here because of it's genuine and inviting community of staff and participants. I am working at a Religious school teaching English reading to third graders. Also, at Beit Sefer Tellalim, I oversee as some students write to pen-pals in the New Jersey Jewish Day School(s). I am volunteering at a musical kindergarten where music and sound come alive. I will be teaching drumming, in addition to being an active part of a program which demonstrates how music and dance/movement work together. After school programs I am involved with include working with a high-school aged Ethiopian community. I teach English to a few of them and twice a week we all get together in their clubhouse to just relax and interact. Twice a week I work in an afterschool program with third graders at the Levaot School, where we sit with children and help them with their homework as well as assist the teacher with issues of discipline and basic respect. At the Levaot school I also teach English to a sixth grade class for two hours, and then work with a special needs child for two hours. Arad is a small vibrant town with more to offer than one might expect (or than I might have expected). With a positive approach to each endeavor, volunteering and interacting with such wide and diverse populations is making these volunteer experiences fulfilling, educational and real, both for them and for me.

Shvat 5760 - January 2000