German Delegation Learns about Immigrant Youth-at-Risk from SHATIL

November 11, 2007

Last week, SHATIL hosted a delegation of German government officials, academics and journalists who visited Israel to learn from the Jewish State's immigrant absorption experience.  Milana Avez, coordinator of SHATIL's Back from the Edge Project for immigrant youth-at-risk, took the group -- which included immigrants from Pakistan, Turkey and Syria – to Educational Bridge in Lod, one of the six organizations that implement the youth-at-risk project in the field.

"After meeting with Israeli government and Jewish Agency officials, the delegation came to SHATIL for a more critical point of view," Milana said. "They wanted to know what's problematic, how the community sees the issue. They asked many provocative questions and were especially interested in the strategic balance between our approach -- preserving identity and culture, emphasizing roots and validating the past – and the process of integration."

Next week, SHATIL will publish the results of a study examining the needs of Ethiopian youth conducted by immigration and education expert Dr. Rita Sever. In Ethiopian Youth in Israel: a Situation Report, Sever concluded that in order to help immigrant youth with drug and alcohol abuse, high school dropout rates, violence and apathy, society must strengthen the parents and the family as well as the roots and identity of the children. "A tree can't grow if its roots are dry," said Sever. She also stressed the importance of minimizing the technological gap that exists between Ethiopian and other pupils, an issue the Back from the Edge project will address. Read a Jerusalem Post article on the report.

Back from the Edge is a comprehensive intervention model aimed at FSU and Ethiopian youth launched last year as a pilot in Be'er Sheva, Ashdod, Lod, Pardes Hana, Gedera and Yavneh. It is supported by the Swiss-based Dorothea Gould Foundation, which works with Jewish immigrant youth in Canada, Germany, Switzerland and Israel. Local organizations that implement the program receive capacity building and training from SHATIL and provide educational enrichment, leadership skills and social and emotional support to immigrant children in schools with a high proportion of immigrant pupils. The Project also works with the children's parents and with school personnel and provides each school with an educational counselor who speaks Russian or Amharic. Project staff also advocate with decision-makers to create policies that are friendly to immigrant pupils.