Message from Timora's CEO
Dear Friends,
Without a doubt, the impact of COVID-19 is quite overwhelming.
It is changing the world at a fast pace and truly affecting every aspect of our lives.
Thankfully, however, Timora is home and the safest place to be for the boys in Timora’s Yiftach Residential Home, in Timora’s Neve Sraya (Brosh) Residential Home, in the Na’ale technological non-residential school, and for the girls in Timora’s Machol Residential Home.
I am very proud of Timora’s staff who are on call and working 24/7 to solve the problems which arise, and to keep both the students and the staff safe and healthy.
I would like to thank you, our dear supporters and friends, for always being there for Timora, especially now when we are experiencing such challenging times.
Your genuine concern is felt through your e-mails and phone calls asking how you can help, and your generous donations give us added strength to continue for the sake of Timora’s youth at risk.
I want to take this opportunity to wish you and your families a healthy and sweet year.
Shana Tova U’Metuka!
Ariel Sokoloff, Timora’s CEO
Message from Sara Weinreb
Director of Timora's Resource Development and Public
Relations Department
Yiftach was the first educational-therapeutic center to be established by Timora more than twenty years ago. Supported by the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Welfare, Yiftach is highly respected in the educational community and is a beacon of light for educators and professionals nationwide. 90% of Yiftach’s graduates enlist in the army or national-civil service; a success rate that proves the immense impact Yiftach is making on Israeli society.
Timora is now embarking on a capital campaign to build new dormitories at Yiftach to replace the dilapidated and worn-down 20 year-old caravans.
Yiftach’s dormitories are not just buildings. They are HOME for Yiftach’s boys.
This was especially felt during the first lockdown of COVID-19 when Yiftach’s students could not go home and remained on campus for months. Now we are facing the same situation once again.
The planned four new dormitories will house sixty boys. In each building there will be six bedrooms with bathrooms and showers; five rooms for three boys each, and one room for three counselors. In addition, there will be two safe rooms to be used for social activities on a daily basis, and to provide protection when necessary.
It is Timora’s belief that we must always continue to grow and develop in order to provide a sturdy foundation for Timora’s students.
Please contact me to join us on this vital journey.
I would like to wish everyone a sweet and healthy SHANA TOVA,
Sara
Meet Yehuda
Yehuda arrived at Yiftach from a small, remote settlement, at the end of the ninth grade, by court order. Yehuda was accused of stealing and had been unable to integrate into any of his previous school frameworks due to severe behavioral problems. He did not trust anyone, behaved violently and aggressively, and did everything in his power to make sure no one would want to be around him.
At the beginning, Yehuda had a very hard time adjusting to his new surroundings at Yiftach and taking part in school activities. It took him a long time to trust the staff and believe that they truly wanted him to succeed. For many months he struggled and checked his boundaries to see if this was a place that could be his home; a place that could address his desire for belonging and his yearning to achieve something in life.
Throughout the entire process, Yiftach’s professional staff encouraged and strengthened Yehuda and enabled him to believe that he had the ability to achieve real growth and change. Yet the road was not easy. Yehuda constantly tested the staff, as if he did not believe they would want to be with him. He was sure that they would give up on him in Yiftach, just as the staff had in the rest of the places he was kicked out of.
After a constructive phase in Yiftach, changes were evident in Yehuda. There was a significant improvement in his behavior, his academic accomplishments had improved, and his attitude towards those around him became more pleasant.
Today, Yehuda is developing social connections with his classmates and with Yiftach’s professional staff. He tests his abilities in various fields and is open to new worlds that previously, he did not know existed. Now Yehuda can develop his strengths and look forward to a normal functioning life.
Timora's Unique
Educational-Therapeutic Approach
The essence of Timora’s educational work with youth at risk focuses on emotions and the spirit. Timora’s professional staff believes that adolescence is a critical developmental stage. It is the time to design the individual’s psyche by means of “work through communication”.
This means that we focus on skills to form a healthy and sound relationship with our surroundings, but first and foremost with ourselves. We must learn to accept ourselves, and only then make peace with our environment, family, G-d, and nature. In Timora’s four educational facilities, we believe that everything starts and ends with relationships. Hence, it is most important for our youth to develop their emotional skills and build meaningful relationships with the world around them.
Our attention is focused on the emotional aspect with an understanding that once the spirit is calm, organized and balanced, a hunger thrives for the physical, cognitive, and educational domains.
This work has been developed over the years via “dynamic education”, a form of language and tools which brings our work to life. Every interaction with Timora’s staff members (from the head of the dormitory, teachers, the home cook, or the bus driver) is guided by a process of emotional training. Our vision is for our youth to take everything they experience and learn with us, and apply it at all stages of life – from high school, through to the IDF or National Service, into their careers and, of course, into family life.
Timora believes that this educational path should be implemented in every educational framework, even the most normative. Educators essentially direct the academic process, but the main challenge should not be only cognitive, but rather emotional, moral and psychological as well.
It is a proven fact that if our emotional world is balanced, we are open to additional areas of growth. For teenage youth, such balance may settle violent tendencies, create motivation and push toward achievement.
The Tutorial Center at Timora's
Neve Sraya ( Brosh ) Residential Village
Timora’s Neve Sraya provides a real home for 60 youth at risk (with a future expectancy of 90), helping them cope with a variety of personal and social issues on their road back to society. Through schooling aimed at achieving matriculation, and activities based on the arts and agriculture, the youth at risk who come to Timora’s Neve Sraya learn new channels of self-expression. Thus, they rejoin their communities to lead productive, well-balanced lives.
The Tutorial Center in Timora’s Neve Sraya provides private and group lessons in language, citizenship, mathematics and English, for students in grades 10-12. The Tutorial Center helps diminish the students’ learning gaps due to time missed at school, learning disorders and various other scholastic and emotional difficulties.
A staff of seven teachers work diligently with the youth from Sunday till Thursday,9:00-12:30 and 14:00-18:00 (on Thursday till 16:00).
The results of Timora’s educational programs are most encouraging: 40% of its graduates are fully matriculated and the rest are completing their matriculation requirements. What’s more, 90% of Timora’s graduates serve in the IDF or in Israel’s National Service. Many Timora graduates have moved on to higher education, become an integral part of the Israeli workforce and have started their own families.