Eight months ago we landed in Israel, ready to take on whatever challenges this year would give us and excited for all of the wonderful experiences we knew we would have.
Eight months ago, we came here hoping to contribute to a place that held and will continue to hold a very special place in our hearts.
It was eight months ago that the Detroit Federation sponsorship believed in our ability to contribute to Israeli society and to the Jewish community in the United States and helped support us spending ten months in Israel. The past three months we have been living in Afula where we spent our mornings volunteering within the Detroit Partnership 2000 region. While there we tried our best to connect to the region, represent the Detroit Jewish Community, and give our time, energy, and experience to the Israeli communities we have volunteered in.
In the beginning of January, under the Connecticut Partnership Region, we moved into an apartment in the Emeq Yeezrael College dorms. Our experience living there had been way more than the two of us could have asked for. Living amongst students our own age really enhanced our experience living in the region and provided us with the opportunity to experience Israeli hospitality and the ability to build strong friendships with our peers.
The last few months of living and working in the region has given us the ability to make life long connections and helped us learn from the people we worked with on a daily basis.Within Afula, we worked at a variety of different places.
Twice a week Nicole volunteered in the WIZO Community Center, helping out in the afternoons in their learning center. Jessica also volunteered at WIZO one afternoon a week.
In the learning center we helped students with their English homework and played games with them in English. While it was challenging at times because of the language barrier, it was this challenge that really helped us become motivated to significantly improve our Hebrew.
Jessica also worked two afternoons a week in the Children's Village in Afula Illit, which is a boarding school for students who come from difficult backgrounds and who benefit more from living outside of their families homes. Jessica spends her afternoons at the Children's Village with the high school boys and girls. Although there was no formal role for her to play at the boarding school, just being there to hang out with the students, help them with homework, practice English with them, and help make their dinner, really made the biggest impact.
Another two afternoons a week Nicole spent working with Atidim, while Jessica spent one afternoon a week working there. Atidim is a program designed for kids that have exhibited strong academic potential and have grown-up and attended schools in the periphery of Israel.
The main goal of Atidim is to provide these students with extra help in certain subject areas that they are taking final exams in, work on increasing their English speaking skills, and motivate students to attend universities and explore Israel by taking them on field trips to see different universities and museums.
Volunteering at Atidim was a unique experience for us because while we spent part of the time tutoring students in English and helping them with their homework, we were given the opportunity to create a series of lessons to teach to small groups of students. While Nicole planned a series of lessons in English to teach formal and informal debate to a group of 10 students, Jessica planned a series of lessons on different world cultures, which included eating foods, listening to music, playing games, and hearing interesting stories from all different types of cultures.
We concluded our time spent at Atidim with a final event called "Culture Day." We requested that the students bring in food, objects, stories, songs, and dances from their own cultures to share with all of the participants of the Afula Atidim program.
While our volunteer placements in Afula were really rewarding, it was our time spent in the Detroit Partnership Region that we most connected to and felt we had made the biggest impact in. The staff from the Detroit Partnership was exceptionally helpful and warm towards us.
We have left the region with a wonderful impression of our very strong partnership and we hope to continue doing great work with the partnership in the future and continue to watch the Detroit Partnership connection grow. Although we were working in a different region, Detroit's region was a great resource for us.
Not just because of our volunteer placements but because of the great adoptive families we were placed with and all of the hospitality that was extended towards us while we were volunteering there.
Since we were living in a new country, far away from our family and the familiarity of home, it was a great comfort to us to have people sincerely care about us, offer us invitations to their home for Shabbat, and check in to make sure we had everything we needed. The work we did with the region was very meaningful to us and contributed tremendously to our experience here in Israel
Every Monday for the last few months, we took a bus to Nazrat Illit to volunteer at Gilad Elementary School. We worked with kids between the ages of nine and eleven and helped them with learning and improving their English skills. It was great to see the kids excited to have volunteers in their school from the United States.
The Principal of Gilad School, Uri, helped us out a lot within the school and went above and beyond out of school by inviting us over for Shabbat dinner and helping plan trips for us around the region.
Twice a week we commuted to Migdal HaEmeq to work in the English center at Rogozin High School.
Out of all of our volunteering placements, this was our favorite volunteer placement and we really enjoyed our time spent there.
The English director, Zahavah was extremely helpful, friendly, and very encouraging of us and all of the work that we did there. We spent our time at Rogozin helping students improve their English comprehension, reading, and speaking skills. We also spent a lot of time having conversations with the students in English, which provided them with critical practice for their oral exams in English before graduation.
We prepared weekly lessons and taught them to the tenth grade English classes. Our lessons were planned with the goal of teaching informal debate and speech skills to the students in order to improve their comfort with speaking English.
A very exciting aspect of the Rogozen student body was their familiarity with Michigan and Tamarack Camps, which both of us attended as campers.
It was a pleasant surprise for us to meet so many kids that could share in our fond memories of when we also attended Tamarack camps.
As the end of our time in Afula and working with the Detroit Partnership region came to a close, it was sad and difficult to have to say goodbye.
Although we have already spent eight interesting and exciting months in Israel, it was really the last three months spent in our partnership region that have been the most meaningful for us.
It is here that we have made the most significant connections to Israelis, where our Hebrew has improved more then we could have imagined, and where we really feel like we were given the ability to give back to the community and to Israel.
If it were not for the help of the Detroit Federation, this opportunity would not have been made possible.
We have grown to love Israel more than we imagined we could have and really tart to feel like its our home.
The people we met and the memories we acquired from our time spent here will be something we will take with us throughout our lives.
Now, as we have moved out and moved on to do more work in Tel Aviv, we want to thank you for everything you have done for us.
We also want to thank you for giving us the ability to work with Detroit Partnership 2000.
Thanks again,
Nicole Miller and Jessica Robins