Our Programs

Gimmel’s flagship program is its After-School Clubs. Every club is run by public-school teacher who attends our bi-weekly pedagogic teaching workshops. In these classes our teachers gain skills to help them not only teach through informal education, but also learn how to see every student’s needs. 

Every program has 2 teachers, 30 students and 10 tutors. Our tutors are students that over the years have shown responsibility, respect and leadership. The students are from the 3rd or 4th grade and the tutors can range from 6th to 10th grade. Gimmel has 12 After-School programs in 7 different schools. 

Running After-School Clubs in the schools allows us to have virtually no overhead. Each club provides lunch for the children arts and crafts and of course prizes. 

There is a very big demand for the After-School Clubs. One of the schools has asked us to open a program in every grade. 

In the Afterschool program children are taught the importance of education, Judaism and leadership. Gimmel believes that these values are the foundation to success in life. The children of Kiryat Malachi come from homes with high unemployment. They confront food and clothing insufficiently. The learning environment is of poor quality. We help them with school and give them tools to study and learn better, hence succeed. The children learn about Jewish values (over half of our participants do not come from Orthodox homes) and of course the children acquire leadership skills learning to volunteer and give back to the community.

Beni Mitzvah program which is a program of Jewish education culminating with a Bar-Bat Mitzvah celebration.

Over the years this program has developed to become a program where the students learn to care for themselves and care for their community. Like many children their ages they are exposed to the worst of negative peer pressure. The communities they live in have very high unemployment and infirm adults. 

This program has become a staple experience in the schools Gimmel is involved in. And is seen as a milestone in the development of the youth. The positive experiences the children go through in the program build up a feeling of self-worth and self-esteem by the students. We have been approached by a few schools that have hear about the program and would like us to open it by them. 

Last year at the beginning of the war Gimmel saw right to establish a “crash therapy mini course” with therapists that taught the teachers in the classroom tools to help the children going through much stress and emotional instability. It was very successful. But we understood that the best would be to have the professionals go into the classroom. So, this year we modified the program and had therapists go into the classrooms. 

Gimmel runs Summer Day Camps for the month of July. We currently have 5 camps with a total of 240 participants. The campers are ‘at-risk’ elementary school aged children. The children enjoy arts and crafts activities. They improve their reading and learning skills. The social interaction allows us to teach coexistence, social values and respect for others. Most importantly the summer camp gets the children off the streets.