This post is not about food that you and I are going to eat. Although, it is about food – and electricity, and basic things like toilet paper – for HaBayit Shel Susan, a job training center in Jerusalem that rescues kids at risk. I visited the center on the foodie tour of Jerusalem organized by Tal Marom Communications.
The kids, ages 15-20, come off the street or were referred to the center by social workers, teachers, or other professionals. They arrive scarred by long neglect and abuse, trusting nobody yet starving for attention. And although many deny it at first, they’re also hungry to fit into normal, working lives.
At HaBayit Shel Susan, volunteers teach the kids life skills. Who volunteers? Top artists and business people; students, pensioners, all kinds of professionals, and just plain good-hearted folks. Avital Goel, the manager, works with a team of salaried teachers and volunteers who conduct informal therapy sessions, take the kids on trips, and teach a variety of classes to close some of the gaps in their education..
The program aims to teach the kids how to design and craft glass and paper objects, the sale of which goes to support the center. And they do produce lovely things: tableware, jewelry, and much more.
But the real agenda is building self-esteem and gaining confidence to tackle challenges. Look at the pride on this young man’s face.
Getting a work ethic, a sense of responsibility. Acquiring social and business skills, the ability to work in a team.
Learning to sustain healthy relationships and approach life in a positive way.
Those are things that you and I absorbed in normal family life, in school, in society. But a kid leading a feral life on the streets, where the strong win by force and the weaker survive by cunning, doesn’t learn how to live in normal society.
We well-fed, comfortable bloggers heard stories that made our hair stand on end. Like that of one “incorrigible” youngster who stole money every day, no matter how many times he got into trouble with the police. He was giving the money to his mother, to support her drug habit. Otherwise, she would sell his 10- and 12-year-old sisters to anyone. Stealing money was the only way he knew to protect his sisters from getting raped over and over again.
This boy studied and worked at the center for two years. Since then, he’s done army service and has a job and an independent life. (His sisters were placed in a foster home. They’re still close.)
While HaBayit Shel Susan is under the supervision of the Jerusalem municipality and the Welfare Office, it’s different from a shelter. The kids don’t live there. It’s an independent non-profit organization supported partially by its own business. Avital and a volunteer lawyer manage the business, but the kids run the shop. Each earns a small salary.
They work in shifts: one from 9:00 AM to 3:00, or from 3:00 to 8:00 PM. Both shifts get lunch at the center.
The front of the shop has displays of beautiful glass work designed and made by the kids. Towards the back is the studio and glass workshop. We toured the factory and talked to the kids on shift.
Then I went around to the where they eat. Someone had donated a spacious kosher kitchen. It was clean, spotless. And almost empty.
On the table were the remains of the kids’s lunch: pasta and salad. Recent government budget cuts reduced financial support from the Welfare Office, which has been the center’s main source of income. So that’s what the kids have been eating: pasta and salad, every day. For many, it’s the only meal they can count on. Pasta, plenty of it, and salad.
What does a mother and foodie feel when she sees that?
The toilet was clean, but there was no hand soap and no toilet paper.
The kids had worked without air conditioning in the heat of summer because there was no money to pay the electricity for it.
Management has trimmed away every possible expense, but HaBayit Shel Susan is perilously close to shutting down for lack of funds.
Over 500 kids have gone through the doors of HaBayit Shel Susan in the past 12 years. 500 young lives saved – without counting the lives of people around them, like the sisters of the boy who stole.
There are 35 youngsters there now who have a reason to get up in the morning where before, there was only a fight to survive despair, violence, drugs. What can we do to keep the center open?
I’ve donated what I can and I’ve written this post. Now here’s what you can do.
Cook up a little charity before Yom Kippur. Or any time you can. The recipe is simple.
How to Save HaBayit Shel Susan
Ingredients:
An open heart
Money, however much you choose
Checkbook
Stamped envelope
Method:
1. Make out your check to HaBayit Shel Susan
2. Mail it to Susanart, Rechov Yad Harutzim 19, Talpiot, Jerusalem 93420, Israel
You will get a receipt in the mail. And lots of reward in the next world.
HaBayit Shel Susan
Rechov Yad Harutzim 19/ 3rd Floor/Talpiot/ Jerusalem 93420/ Israel
Phone: +972-2-6725069
Here’s a Youtube video where you can see the physical setup at HaBayit Shel Susan. It’s in Hebrew, a TV coverage. But just look at those kids’ faces.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=L8L-uAP4Aoo
The center also has a website. The Hebrew pages are the ones worth browsing, with more photos and videos. Still, the English page expands a bit more on goals and accomplishments. And you’ll see the story of who Susan was and the beginnings of the center named after her. Website: http://www.susanart.org.il
May you and your loved ones have a wonderful year. G’mar chatima tova!
