Five years ago Women’s Philanthropy launched an enhanced giving campaign to develop a center for girls and women known as The ISHA Center, in MetroWest’s partnership city of Ofakim, Israel. We are now reaching out to you, our new Lions and those Lions who did not participate five years ago to further develop and enrich this center. The center provides a safe and secure environment where vulnerable teen girls and women within this community can become engaged and empowered through its many activities and mentoring programs.

Ofakim, a MetroWest partnership city, is a peripheral development town in southern Israel with a population of 27,000. More than one-quarter are new immigrants from the former Soviet Union and Ethiopia and many of its inhabitants comprise of large and single parent families. With the average income 25% below the average national income, the population includes an ever increasing number of vulnerable girls, women and families.

The ISHA Center will house a “warm home” for up to 40 troubled teenage girls, doubling the capacity of the present “warm house” in Ofakim. It will also include a “social club” for 80 to 100 women who are looking for self empowerment, personal growth, peer support and friendship, along with a desire to contribute to their community.

A “Warm Home” provides a safe haven for local at risk teenage girls after school. These teens, referred by social workers and school counselors, participate in a two-year structured program. This program includes classes and workshops in nutrition, beauty, home economics, personal development and self image, civic engagement, Jewish identity issues. Ofakim’s Warm Home is presently housed in a small apartment, but will soon re-locate to the much larger ISHA Center to meet the growing demands for its services.

It is intended that the women from the social club will become mentors and role models to these troubled teens, involving them in understanding of family, community and financial empowerment. The connections forged between the Ofakim at risk teens and the women will be life altering and long lived.

The social club will also include women from The Ethnic Empowerment Women’s Group, which is comprised of women living in Ofakim, mostly from North African origins. They have used their unique ethnic cooking traditions to create a successful registered cooperative which is now a self sustaining and productive catering business. They are eager to mentor these teens, share their success, involve them in their business, allow them to earn an income and teach them essential business skills.

We are offering you this opportunity to perform a mitzvah which will be life altering to both the girls and women of Ofakim and their families. You can either increase your gift to the 2010 annual campaign by $500 and designate that increased portion to The ISHA Center campaign or simply designate a one time gift of $500 to The ISHA Center, please click on the link below to complete our online donation form. When the project is completed we will have a wall of honor listing the names of all of the women who participated in this project.