Community Service Opportunities in Israel

ETGARIM

Etgarim, a non-profit organization, was founded in 1995 by a group of disabled IDF (Israel Defense Forces) veterans, disabled civilians and senior rehabilitation professionals. It was founded in order to help children, adolescents and adults to rehabilitate themselves physically, mentally and socially, through challenging sports and outdoor activities.

Etgarim is the first Israeli organization to bring the physically challenged to the great outdoors, integrating them with society, enabling them an equal opportunity and proving to them that they can also live and be just like everyone else.

Etgarim is based on a unique and novel approach, which actively implements the most advanced methods of modern rehabilitative psychology. Etgarim acts to fulfill the personal potential in everyone, to cultivate excellence and to create a new, positive self image among the disabled community, and among Israeli society at large.

Currently, there are about half a million children, adolescents and adults living on the margins of Israeli society, with physical and mental disabilities or special needs. Etgarim gives them hope, and opens the door for a rich variety of activities and outdoor sports programs, which help them to integrate into society.

INTRA

Intra, The Israel National Therapeutic Riding Association (INTRA) is a non-profit organization committed to teaching equine skills and horseback riding to people with a wide variety of disabilities. The center is located in an idyllic setting on the Mediterranean coastline in the village of Neurim, North of Tel Aviv.

OFANIM

Ofanim was created as a unique concept to bring supplemental education to the poorest and most under-served communities in Israel.  Created in 2004 by Haim “Emil” Dahan, Ofanim now operates 6 high tech mobile classrooms that literally “drive education to Israel.”

The uniqueness of the program is not only the extraordinary buses, and the education delivery method, but the fact that the Ofanim program is tailored to the poorest in the periphery of Israel—not the heartland cities.  The buses provide over 50 weekly activities in 30 communities throughout the Negev and the north.  The program currently reaches about 600 children per week, or over 45,000 hours of education to deserving children that they would otherwise never have had.

Ofanim acts as motivators and incubators for these children—motivating growth and incubating ideas so that the true potential of even the poorest Israelis can be realized.