Young Communities
One of the main elements which link people to a city is emotional involvement, stemming from a feeling of personal commitment. We believe that one of the best ways to achieve this emotional involvement is volunteering. The goal of the Community Involvement Project is to integrate the largest number of students possible into various volunteering activities, serving both the well being of the Jerusalem community, and the facilitation of the emotional involvement so important in our view. We pursue these goals in two distinct projects:
(a) integration of motivated 'pioneer' students into tough neighborhoods and
(b) various volunteer activities.
'Pioneer' students in the neighborhoods
This project is based on the assumption that true long term integration of highly educated, ideologically committed and motivated students into Jerusalem's neighborhoods can serve as the key to long term development of local communities' human resources. Following the success of the pilot program and a recent recruitment campaign, over 120 students bought in this concept yielding 7 student groups, now making their first steps "on the ground" in Kiryat Yovel, Morasha, Katamon, Neve Yaakov, Armon Ha'natziv and other neighborhoods. Each group is committed to establish at least one form of informal educational framework (i.e. study centre, extra curricular and enrichment workshops, etc.) and is working in synergy with the local neighborhood leadership.
These students are not being compensated for choosing to live in the neighborhood. Funding is needed mostly for the establishment of the educational framework, as well as for the guidance these groups are receiving through a common forum held every two weeks (hosted by a professional) and a personal "coach" assigned to each community. This guidance has been proven as crucial in the first (and very vulnerable) stages of building activist communities. Funding is also used to "spread the word" – at this stage New Spirit has already managed to attract 80 additional students, which are in the preliminary stages of forming 5 additional groups. Currently, the project is funded primarily by the Jewish Agency, the Oran foundation and The Jerusalem Foundation.
New Spirit believes that with the proper motivation students will participate in volunteer projects on a large scale. For this reason, New Spirit offers volunteer opportunities ranging from working with disadvantaged kids to environmental activities in the neighborhoods. We try to focus on what we perceive as "quality" volunteering opportunities, leveraging the relative strengths of the student population, preferring projects that allow us to create a systematic change in the city over "here and now" type efforts. These volunteering opportunities allow students not only to give back to the Jerusalem community, but also to see and feel it at the same time.
During the past academic year we have recruited more than 750 new volunteers, offering an average of two different activities each week. Holidays were an especially wonderful opportunity for us to bring the students' young spirit into Jerusalem's neighborhoods – Last Purim, for instance, students and kids created costumes together in 4 different neighborhoods (Over 100 volunteers and 400 children participated!).
Purim with the cummunity