Jewish Charitable Fund “Beiteinu – Our Home” executes small and big projects in cultural-educational and social tracks

This work allows the Fund to make life more interesting, broaden our horizons, and share our experience with colleagues. In our projects we aim to better understand Jewish life, what problems are Jewish families faced with, and whenever possible we try to help them with their problems. Our professionals guide and cultivate children’s talent and help them find their place in the community. We help children with our knowledgeable staff: teachers, psychologists, and social workers.
We are always happy to hear new and interesting ideas, join us and let’s try to turn them into reality!

 

“Research of Substance Abuse in the Kyiv and Kyiv Region Jewish Community”
From September 2007 until March 2008 JCF “Beiteinu – Our Home” with the support of the International agency “World Jewish Relief” (UK) conducted the “Research of Substance Abuse in the Kyiv and Kyiv Region Jewish Community” project.
The goals of the project were to conduct the needs analysis of substance abuse in the local Jewish community, especially in vulnerable families, as well as to give a complete description of the problem of substance abuse in the local Jewish community.
Today substance abuse is an enormous problem in Ukraine. The official statistics shows that there over 100 000 drug addicts in Ukraine, but in fact the number is ten times larger. More than 95% of these people are ages 15 to 30, and 97% of them have tried using drugs as teenagers (12 – 19 years old.) But still alcoholic dependence is a major issue in Ukraine. The amount of alcoholic beverages produced, advertised and consumed is absolutely enormous.
The Ukrainian Jewish community declares that substance abuse does not exist among its members. Substance abuse is a taboo subject; there is little communication on this issue. There is also no attention to this problem in Jewish educational establishments; however the community center “Beiteinu – Our Home” has a number of clients, who have former experience of drug use and who, evidently, are able to reflect and voice the problems, which are being neglected. Unfortunately, there is no full, structuralized and summarized data on substance abuse cases inside the Jewish community of Ukraine.
That is why we consider it vital to research this subject and, since our Fund operates in Kyiv, the most efficient way to do it is to analyze the situation with substance abuse inside the Kyiv and the Kyiv regional Jewish community.
Within the framework of the project we have conducted interviews with parents and professionals in the community as well as focus groups with teenagers. Overall number of participants was 97.
The analysis of the data obtained has led us to the conclusion that the community is the best basis for preventive work in the sphere of drug abuse. Parents and professionals stressed various activities and programs organized by the Jewish community leaders and organizations are interesting for children and attract their attention. As a result, in their spare time children are involved in informal educational process that enriches their spiritual inner world and leaves no time for idleness. Such distraction from negative impacts and dangers of life around children and young people help feel the need in positive activity and they get accustomed to it. Teenagers emphasized the importance of community centered approach, because they think it’s crucial to take an active part in any kind of activity. These community-based activities should be interesting; they should excite the youth and stir as much young people as possible to greater activity. It’s also important that such activities give appreciable results (e.g. new skills, knowledge, and experience).

«Life is in Your Own Hands»
From September 2008 until March 2009 JCF “Beiteinu – Our Home” with the support of the International agency “World Jewish Relief” (UK) implemented the “Life is in Your Own Hands” project as a reasonable follow-up of the “Research of Substance Abuse in the Kyiv and Kyiv Region Jewish Community” project.
The aim of the project is to raise the teenage participants’ self-confidence and to foster in them the need for a healthy, independent and self-sufficient way of life.

The goals of the project:
- To promote healthy way of life through emphasizing the variety of life opportunities and the importance of creative self-realization as a way of expressing a young personality
- To convince the participants of their exceptional creativity, imagination and skills
- To establish friendly relations and cooperation of teenagers from different Jewish communities of Ukraine
- To acquaint the teenage participants with various interesting undemanding kinds of creative work
- To stress the diversity of things that can be done in leisure time
- To improve the teenagers’ communication skills and to facilitate the interaction between teenagers, their parents and professionals in the community
- To unite the creative forces of teenage groups in order to achieve a synergetic effect in producing a joint creation (film, photo album)

The Project implies conducting creativity workshop trainings for teenage groups representing 6 Ukrainian cities (Kyiv, Bila Tserkva, Cherkassy, Chernihiv, Irpen and Boyarka) focused on: gum boots and T-shirts design coloring using non-toxic acrylic paint, making bags and designing them using patterns and paint spray cans, making candle lamps using metal wire, sewing and candles.

Our main achievements during this period are the following:
- The participating Jewish communities are consistently paying attention to the proposed topic and activities, acknowledge its importance and meaning in the context of the children’s development and personal growth.
- The proposed work united the efforts of community work professionals, volunteers, children and their parents around the idea of creative self-expression.
- The children showed great enthusiasm during the preparation stage, many of them were willing to be volunteers in the Project.
- Parents and professionals in the community expressed their appreciation for the Project goals and methods, and stressed that practical approach is very suitable for both the cause and the participants.
- Jewish communities’ professionals took note of the methods proposed and contributed to the organization and implementation of the Project.
- The success of the completed activities is promoted by all participants in their own environments, attracting other communities’ attention and empowering them to conduct similar activities inside their Jewish communities.
- A group of active Jewish youth is formed; teenagers are enthusiastic to apply their newly acquired skills in practice.
- A pattern of successful children’s leisure organizations is established within the local Jewish community.
- The experience gained from the current project is used by the community work specialists in their work with vulnerable teenagers in the framework of other community programs.

«Talents Workshop»
The international “Talents Workshop” project is aimed at socializing orphaned children who live and study in 10 different Ukrainian boarding-schools and providing social rehabilitation for children with special needs. The project has been running for one year already, it covers 1538 orphans of various nationalities including 546 children with special needs. The completed first stage included a seminar for the boarding-schools faculty, Kyiv painters’ trips to boarding-schools and organization of creativity sessions there, conduction of a huge Arts festival in Kyiv for the orphans from 10 Ukrainian regions.
The Project team applies the latest achievements of the individual-oriented pedagogy that proved their efficiency in the orphans’ development and socialization.

The second stage of the Project will combine the remote learning techniques (Internet, one general database + Forum) and module courses (3 sessions in Kyiv). The objects of learning are traditional and virtual kinds of art – painting, graphics, PC design, vocal art, PC animation, and ceramics. The main theme of the process – ‘Ukraine and the World’, ‘My Planet’, ‘Journeys into the Worlds of Different Cultures’
The volunteers’ movement evoked by the Project aims at stimulating the local educational establishments, authorities and businesses to donate in favor of children in need.

The final creativity festivals in boarding-schools are supposed to demonstrate children’s talents, the community’s participation in helping the orphans, the volunteers’ efforts in humanizing the lives of boarding-schools inhabitants: improvement of the staff’s relation to the children, of children between themselves, promoting children’s openness to their own and other cultures, other ways of life in distant lands. The Project’s grand finale is a three-week health recovery creative camp for gifted children.
The Project includes creation of a documentary about children’s creativity and edition of an album with children’s painting, literary essays, photos of children’s performances and exhibitions.

The Project geography: regions – Kyiv (Bila Tserkva), Sumy (Glynsk), Kharkiv (Lyubotin), Lugansk (Rovenki), Cherkassy (Ladizhinka), Crimea (Feodosiya), Zakarpattya (Mukachevo), Zaporizhya (Zaporizh’ya).
The ‘Talents Workshop’ project was supported by International Public Organization “American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, Inc”, Leonid Kuchma President Fund “Ukraine”, Club of Successful People, pharmaceutical company “Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd”.

Family Genealogical School “Elevator into the Past”
From October 2007 to October 2008 in JCF “Beiteinu – Our Home” conducted a family school where children, teens and their families learned about their own ancestors. In this school grandfathers and grandmothers taught their grandchildren and their peers about questions that they didn’t have time to answer or kids were too scared to ask. In this school grandparents and parents take on a very special role, not just teachers but they become students as well. Historians, archivists, museum staff, collectors of folk tales and music become their teachers.

 

“Reintegration of Children with Psychological Problems in the Family”
This project was started in 2005-2006 with the help of the “Family for a Child” project from HoltInternational. This brought us another step towards helping invalid children from specialized boarding schools.
JCF “Beiteinu – Our Home” put their efforts towards helping children with psychological problems in a boarding school in Ladizhinka, Uman Region, Cherkasska Oblast. Most children have parents but for one reason or another they are unable to take care of their children with their specific conditions. Our goals were to create a line of communication between parents and children and to aid families with taking their kids back if possible.

A specialized group of professionals from JCF “Beiteinu – Our Home” and teachers from the boarding school conducted training seminars. Seminars taught parents communication skills and how to behave with their children who have psychological problems. Children in their turn attended lessons that taught practical skills, how to conduct themselves in different situation, and how to make decisions. To further help with development of practical skills carpentry and a sewing machine were bought for the school.
The final part of the project was a trip to Kyiv for children and their parents. Students from the boarding school became active members of project “Workshop of Talents.” In addition, theatrical studio “Gorod” from JCF “Beiteinu – Our Home” became a frequent visitor in Lodizhinka for holiday concerts, and other celebrations.

«Forgotten World»
Between the past and the future – pages of Jewish life in Ukraine
“Forgotten World” project implemented in “Beiteinu” in 2005-2006 was aimed towards finding and fixing of survived “islands” of traditional Jewish culture in Ukraine. Project resulted in creation of a photo-album.
“Forgotten” does not mean Lost. Rather, replaced by different rhythms of life and values. This photo album is about Jews of Polissya, Galicia, Bukovyna and Podillya. The faces of the characters from books of Sholom-Aleichem, Babel and Zinger, touched by the imprint of aging; cemeteries and walls, disappearing into the ground – it resembles the debris of a once huge continent, lost between the past and future.
Project implemented with the support of Hanadiv Charitable Foundation (UK).