Giving choice to school leaver travelling Israel
LEARNING, touring and empowering young people will be on the agenda when Israel By Choice (IBC) director Mimi Lax visits Australia this week.
LEARNING, touring and empowering young people will be on the agenda when Israel By Choice (IBC) director Mimi Lax visits Australia this week.
Arriving in Melbourne on Thursday (May 27) and visiting Sydney next week, Lax is promoting the 2011 program aimed at school leavers wanting to spend an extended period in Israel, without an affiliation to a youth movement.
“I think that IBC offers an opportunity for kids … to come and explore Israel in a very special framework that allows them to get to know Israel from the inside out, being part of a group, but still allowing personal independence and growth. This unique framework creates a very creative, open-minded program,” Lax told The AJN ahead of her visit.
“The program is unique in that you can choose to come for five or 10 months. It is very independent and participants have the ability to create their own program. The fact that IBC is run by Israelis [also] makes it different from other programs.”
Divided into five blocks, the IBC program can be customised by the participant.
Choices include opportunities to volunteer with local organisations and learn through seminars on Jewish identity, Israel advocacy and leadership.
Tours are also incorporated into the program to give participants a sense of the country’s history, geography and culture, as well as organised interaction with different cultural groups.
More than 80 Australians undertook the program this year, joining participants from New Zealand, South Africa, the United Kingdom and Argentina. An important aspect of IBC is its partnership with the Ein Prat leadership program, which pairs the Diaspora youngsters with Israelis of the same age.
“I believe that the future leadership of the Jewish nation will be in the hands of these kids. We need to remind them what the Jewish nation is all about and that we all need to look out for each other,” Lax said.
“We don’t know what the future will bring for us — but we do know that no matter what happens, the Jewish nation needs to stick together. If these kids create strong bonds, they will care about each other and they will make sure that the Israeli State is strong and that the Jewish communities in the Diaspora are strong as well.”
PHOTO: From left: Meaghan Kausman, Nikki Silman, Vanessa Mrocki, Ariel Zinn and Jessica Davis in Israel on the current IBC program. Photo: AJN.
DALIA SABLE
comments