From Steve Schwager, CEO
The Maldives is a small Muslim island nation in the Indian Ocean spread over 1,192 islets—only 200 of them inhabited—with a widely scattered population of some 300,000 people. The islands are actually the tops of a vast undersea submarine mountain range. Maldives is the smallest Asian country in both population and land mass. But its most remarkable distinction is that it is the lowest country on earth, rising to a mere 2.3 meters above sea level at its highest point. That’s just 7 feet, 7 inches!
That makes the Maldives especially vulnerable to natural disasters, particularly where water is involved. The archipelago’s government ministers dramatically demonstrated that fact a year or so ago: they donned scuba gear and held a cabinet meeting underwater, highlighting the threat their island country faces from rising sea levels associated with global warming.
So you can well imagine that heavy rains, storms, and typhoons are all taken very seriously in the Maldives. And so are tsunamis.
Compared to countries that bore the brunt of the 2004 tsunami, the Maldives was fortunate. Partly sheltered from the vast wave, “only” about 100 Maldivians are believed to have died that December 26 (2004)—a tragedy that would have made global headlines were it not for the massive loss of life in nearby countries.
Indeed, given the scale of the suffering caused by the tsunami six years ago, JDC’s own relief programs focused first on the countries hardest hit—Sri Lanka, India, Indonesia, and Thailand—where an estimated 225,000 people lost their lives and another 1.5 to 2 million were displaced.
JDC’s tsunami relief efforts have made a lasting difference in the affected countries. Over these six years, we have supported more than 150 projects, dealing with both immediate relief—food, water, blankets, etc.—and the long-term reconstruction of communities, individual dignity, and quality of life.
JDC projects have included:
Indonesia: Providing psychosocial support, creating child friendly spaces, and establishing a fishing cooperative as well as other income generating activities.
Sri Lanka: Working with USAID and the Bush-Clinton Fund to construct 85 playgrounds throughout the coastal plain; and partnering with local organizations to provide skills training and empowerment activities, establishing five multi-purpose community centers along the southern coast, and creating a management center that has developed a regional network in the field of disaster preparedness.
India: Helping reestablish livelihoods by implementing cash-for-work programs in 10 villages, in addition to emergency shelter, medicine, and food relief programs.
Thailand: Collaborating with a local partner on a full range of psychosocial and community development projects, including a series of workshops for teachers to learn how to provide psychological support to their students and trauma relief seminars led by Israeli experts; establishing a number of school-based computer centers; supporting vocational retraining programs; conducting school lunch programs; and building playgrounds and toilets.
But the unique situation of the Maldives also demanded our attention. So JDC began to support several post-tsunami relief initiatives there starting in 2008.
Working with the Care Society Maldives and the All India Disaster Mitigation Institute, an Indian-based NGO, JDC supported a school safety program in 2009. The program, which mapped the safety of schools in the Maldives to withstand manmade and natural disasters and implemented improvements in the level of disaster preparedness in vulnerable schools, also provided a “training the trainers” aspect related to school safety.
In 2010, through Magen David Adom (MDA), JDC equipped a floating ambulance for use in the southern Maldives and trained local medical teams in the use of the equipment. Viewed as a critical addition to the country’s emergency response medical fleet, the floating ambulance is being used to respond to the medical needs of citizens living on the country’s 200 populated islands.
A Workshop on Disaster Preparedness and Inter-Organizational Coordination was implemented by Mashav and MDA in 2010, in cooperation with the Maldives National Disaster Management Centre. Three Israeli experts trained some 40 participants from the Maldives’ public sector during the weeklong workshop.
Just a few weeks ago, with support from JDC, a mission of eight Israeli ophthalmologic volunteer medical professionals from Eye from Zion spent 10 days in the Maldives as invited guests of the island-nation’s government. The mission was coordinated and closely chaperoned by Government Undersecretary Abdulla Shahid, Coordinator of the Maldives National Disaster Management Centre.
JDC’s partnership with Eye from Zion—an Israeli-Jewish NGO that provides free ophthalmologic treatments and surgeries that are often unavailable locally in developing countries—dates back almost to the organization’s founding in 2007.
The Israeli doctors who were part of the Maldives mission worked with local health authorities and local physicians to provide medical support to the vision impaired. They held “eye surgery camps” in the capital Male and in the Southern Island region. Using their own mobile sterile operating facility brought from Israel, the doctors successfully performed some 40 surgeries and gave consultations and other treatments to an additional 400 Maldivians.
The Israeli team also left behind a stronger Maldivian capacity to render similar treatment. They provided training for local medical and paramedical personnel and left the mobile operating facility to the local authorities when they departed.
President Mohamed Nasheed met with and thanked the Israeli team on behalf of the “vast majority of Maldivians” for their humanitarian work. And during the mission, Minister Shahid called Judy Amit, Global Director of JDC’s International Development Program, to extend his profuse gratitude for JDC’s support of this worthy project.
As we have mentioned many times, JDC’s non-sectarian initiatives aim to foster greater goodwill and to employ the knowledge and experience of Israeli experts, Israeli governmental and non-governmental organizations, and JDC technical assistance wherever it can be valuable.
And that’s exactly what has happened in the Maldives. Asia’s smallest country it may be. But Irv and I believe that our IDP involvement there has had an enormous impact—one that will be felt there, and throughout the tsunami region, for many years to come.
January 24, 2011
January 18, 2011
JDC Update from Tunisia
From Irv Smokler, JDC President and Steve Schwager, CEO
With turbulent political events occurring in Tunisia, we share with you how the situation is impacting the small, but vibrant Jewish community there.
Tunisia is essentially shut down by a general strike, with massive anti-government demonstrations appearing everywhere. But the Jewish community -- 300-500 in Tunis, 100 in Zarzis, 60-80 living in Sfax and Sousse, and approximately 1,000 Jews on the island of Djerba -- is not the focus of any demonstration thus far.
As a precaution, police buses now block the entrance to the Jewish Quarter in Djerba. Although there was a large demonstration of workers in nearby Houmt Souk today --- Jewish life in Djerba remains calm and continues almost as usual.
The government has intensified heavy police protection for the Grand Synagogue of Tunis and the central building of the Jewish community. A massive street demonstration on the main boulevard passed by the synagogue without incident; the focus of the protesters remains the current government.
Security forces protecting the Jewish Old Age Home in La Goulette have been increased; no incidents have been reported.
All schools and universities were shut down earlier this week as a precaution against violence and protest vandalism. Although the Jewish schools in Djerba continue to function normally, the Chabad School in downtown Tunis closed so that it would not to be viewed as different from any other educational establishment there. Prayer services at the school continue as usual.
Yechiel Bar-Chaim, JDC’s Country Director for Tunisia, reports his main concern for the small 100-member Jewish community in Zarzis on the Tunisian mainland.
On Thursday, four non-Jewish civilians were killed during the protests there and a Jewish shop was among the many that were looted in the city center. Their funerals today will most probably be followed by an outpouring of public grief and anger.
The Jews of Zarzis live in a two-square block area just off the town center, surrounded by their synagogue, Jewish schools, the mikveh, and the place where chickens are kashered. On an adjoining street are the jewelry stores where most of the members of the Jewish community earn their living.
Until today this self-imposed “ghetto without walls" was carefully protected 24/7 by the Tunisian police. But the police have simply disappeared from the streets of Zarzis and the army presence there is basically a passive one. In fact the police have reportedly disappeared in many places throughout Tunisia. But the Jews in Zarzis will be vulnerable if the demonstrations after the funerals take a wrong turn. And in fact, four Jewish families from the town have already taken temporary refuge in Djerba.
JDC has been active in Tunisia since 1950, but Jewish communal life there dates back at least 2,300 years, when 30,000 Jews were forced to move from Palestine to Tunisia by the Romans under the Emperor Titus. After World War II, estimates of the size of the Jewish population in Tunisia range from 105,000 to several times that number. The community declined to 23,000 by the end of 1967 and to 9,000 by 1990. And so we call its estimated 1,500 members a remnant, yet still thriving Jewish community.
We will continue to monitor the situation closely and will update you as necessary.
With turbulent political events occurring in Tunisia, we share with you how the situation is impacting the small, but vibrant Jewish community there.
Tunisia is essentially shut down by a general strike, with massive anti-government demonstrations appearing everywhere. But the Jewish community -- 300-500 in Tunis, 100 in Zarzis, 60-80 living in Sfax and Sousse, and approximately 1,000 Jews on the island of Djerba -- is not the focus of any demonstration thus far.
As a precaution, police buses now block the entrance to the Jewish Quarter in Djerba. Although there was a large demonstration of workers in nearby Houmt Souk today --- Jewish life in Djerba remains calm and continues almost as usual.
The government has intensified heavy police protection for the Grand Synagogue of Tunis and the central building of the Jewish community. A massive street demonstration on the main boulevard passed by the synagogue without incident; the focus of the protesters remains the current government.
Security forces protecting the Jewish Old Age Home in La Goulette have been increased; no incidents have been reported.
All schools and universities were shut down earlier this week as a precaution against violence and protest vandalism. Although the Jewish schools in Djerba continue to function normally, the Chabad School in downtown Tunis closed so that it would not to be viewed as different from any other educational establishment there. Prayer services at the school continue as usual.
Yechiel Bar-Chaim, JDC’s Country Director for Tunisia, reports his main concern for the small 100-member Jewish community in Zarzis on the Tunisian mainland.
On Thursday, four non-Jewish civilians were killed during the protests there and a Jewish shop was among the many that were looted in the city center. Their funerals today will most probably be followed by an outpouring of public grief and anger.
The Jews of Zarzis live in a two-square block area just off the town center, surrounded by their synagogue, Jewish schools, the mikveh, and the place where chickens are kashered. On an adjoining street are the jewelry stores where most of the members of the Jewish community earn their living.
Until today this self-imposed “ghetto without walls" was carefully protected 24/7 by the Tunisian police. But the police have simply disappeared from the streets of Zarzis and the army presence there is basically a passive one. In fact the police have reportedly disappeared in many places throughout Tunisia. But the Jews in Zarzis will be vulnerable if the demonstrations after the funerals take a wrong turn. And in fact, four Jewish families from the town have already taken temporary refuge in Djerba.
JDC has been active in Tunisia since 1950, but Jewish communal life there dates back at least 2,300 years, when 30,000 Jews were forced to move from Palestine to Tunisia by the Romans under the Emperor Titus. After World War II, estimates of the size of the Jewish population in Tunisia range from 105,000 to several times that number. The community declined to 23,000 by the end of 1967 and to 9,000 by 1990. And so we call its estimated 1,500 members a remnant, yet still thriving Jewish community.
We will continue to monitor the situation closely and will update you as necessary.
January 12, 2011
Looking Back...
During 2010, in more than 70 countries, JDC was there saving lives, alleviating hardship, and rebuilding families and communities.
Visit our special page highlighting JDC in 2010 and go on a virtual tour with our new photo exhibit about our efforts throughout the past year.
Visit our special page highlighting JDC in 2010 and go on a virtual tour with our new photo exhibit about our efforts throughout the past year.
 |
| Click on the photo for link |
On behalf of the more than 2 million people
impacted by our work each year, we thank you.
January 6, 2011
ONE YEAR LATER, JDC IS PROVIDING HOPE IN HAITI
New York, New York, January 5, 2011: One year after the Haitian earthquake, the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee’s (JDC) critical relief efforts have directly impacted 240,000 Haitians and are paving a path toward better lives for the disabled and children. Through $7.7 million dollars in donations from the Jewish Federations of North America and tens of thousands of individual donors, JDC’s collaboration with Haitian, Israeli, and other NGOs has fed, clothed, provided state-of-the-art medical treatment, job training, and education for the country’s recovering population.
Within days of the earthquake the global Jewish community generously responded to this disaster. One year later, we have helped improve the lives of hundreds of thousands of Haitian earthquake survivors. Whether we’re getting people walking again at our rehab clinic and prosthetic lab or ensuring educational outlets for Haitian children, we do so inspired by tikkun olam and our unwavering commitment to the potential of every human life, said JDC CEO Steven Schwager.
JDC and its partners have delivered medical services to more than 53,000 Haitians and additionally aided more than 800 people and fitted more than 70 prosthetics through its state-of-the-art rehabilitation clinic at l'Hôpital de l'Université d'Etat d'Haïti and nearby prosthetic lab. JDC also ran 10 schools in tent camps in Port Au Prince and ensured that 150,000 displaced Haitians had access to 80 emergency water tanks. You can learn more about these and many other programs in JDC’s Haiti Relief One Year Report.
In 2011, JDC will focus on physical and psychological rehabilitation for the disabled and critical schooling for Haitian children. JDC’s ongoing services for Haitian amputees will include professional training for local medical and paramedical staff and treatment by a team of Haitian/American/Israeli doctors, physiotherapists and occupational therapists. JDC will complete construction on a disabled-accessible middle school in Zoranje that includes a vocational training program; is planning on rebuilding a modern elementary and secondary school in Fondwa; and will improve school accessibility for disabled students, including awareness and sensitivity training for teachers and other staff. JDC will also continue its vocational training courses for masons in anti-seismic construction techniques.
JDC’s partners in Haiti are: The Afya Foundation; Catholic Relief Services; Chabad-Lubavitch of the Dominican Republic; EcoWorks International; Heart to Heart International; International Medical Corps; The International Rescue Committee; The Israel Trauma Coalition; Magen David Adom; Sheba Medical Center; The Medical Corps of the Israel Defense Forces; Partners in Health (Zanmi Lasante); PRODEV; UNICEF Haiti; USAID Haiti; US Fund for UNICEF; and World ORT.
Within days of the earthquake the global Jewish community generously responded to this disaster. One year later, we have helped improve the lives of hundreds of thousands of Haitian earthquake survivors. Whether we’re getting people walking again at our rehab clinic and prosthetic lab or ensuring educational outlets for Haitian children, we do so inspired by tikkun olam and our unwavering commitment to the potential of every human life, said JDC CEO Steven Schwager.
JDC and its partners have delivered medical services to more than 53,000 Haitians and additionally aided more than 800 people and fitted more than 70 prosthetics through its state-of-the-art rehabilitation clinic at l'Hôpital de l'Université d'Etat d'Haïti and nearby prosthetic lab. JDC also ran 10 schools in tent camps in Port Au Prince and ensured that 150,000 displaced Haitians had access to 80 emergency water tanks. You can learn more about these and many other programs in JDC’s Haiti Relief One Year Report.
In 2011, JDC will focus on physical and psychological rehabilitation for the disabled and critical schooling for Haitian children. JDC’s ongoing services for Haitian amputees will include professional training for local medical and paramedical staff and treatment by a team of Haitian/American/Israeli doctors, physiotherapists and occupational therapists. JDC will complete construction on a disabled-accessible middle school in Zoranje that includes a vocational training program; is planning on rebuilding a modern elementary and secondary school in Fondwa; and will improve school accessibility for disabled students, including awareness and sensitivity training for teachers and other staff. JDC will also continue its vocational training courses for masons in anti-seismic construction techniques.
JDC’s partners in Haiti are: The Afya Foundation; Catholic Relief Services; Chabad-Lubavitch of the Dominican Republic; EcoWorks International; Heart to Heart International; International Medical Corps; The International Rescue Committee; The Israel Trauma Coalition; Magen David Adom; Sheba Medical Center; The Medical Corps of the Israel Defense Forces; Partners in Health (Zanmi Lasante); PRODEV; UNICEF Haiti; USAID Haiti; US Fund for UNICEF; and World ORT.
You can find more information and feature stories on our Haiti
January 5, 2011
ASYV Going Independent
From Steve Schwager, CEO
For over two decades the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and other development experts have been vocal on their interest in initiating “sustainable development” programs around the world. It is with great pleasure that I write to you about JDC’s very own such project in Rwanda: the Agahozo-Shalom Youth Village (ASYV). On December 31, 2010, JDC turned over complete ownership of ASYV to that organization’s newly created Board of Directors, who are assuming full responsibility for this wonderful residential community for orphaned and vulnerable youth on a mountaintop outside of Kigali.
I have watched this program grow from a dream to a mesmerizing reality in the course of just three short years. And it all started with an innocent question….
Anne Heyman and her husband Seth Merrin (a son of JDC Board member Ed Merrin) sponsor a program at Tufts University called Voices of Moral Conscience. Each year, they bring in a special speaker through the Tufts Hillel who addresses the full campus. In 2007, they featured a Rwandan gentleman who talked about the 1994 genocide and the country’s subsequent development. When Anne Heyman asked about the greatest problem then facing the country, he offered a one word reply: “orphans.” In a country with a population of just over 8 million people, there were a startling 1.2 million children without parents.
Anne Heyman could not let the issue lie. She investigated how the Jewish community cared for our orphans following the Holocaust, and made her way to JDC. I told her of the unique model of Youth Aliyah and recommended she visit Chaim Peri at the Yemin Orde Youth Village near Haifa. Anne did so and continued to investigate whether or not this model, based on the principles of Tikkun Halev (Repair of the Heart) and Tikkun Olam (Repair of the World), could be replicated to help heal Rwanda’s orphaned children. Like the Holocaust orphans, many of these children had suffered trauma and the loss of family during the genocide in 1994, when more than 800,000 innocent Rwandan civilians were murdered.
Considerable research on Anne’s part showed that bringing this model to the heart of Rwanda was both feasible and much desired by the local community. Thus the Agahozo-Shalom Youth Village was on its way to becoming a reality. (Agahozo is Kinyarwandan for “the place where tears are dried.”)
JDC helped incubate the idea and worked closely with Anne and her newly developed management team, which oversaw the fundraising, construction, and first years of operation of ASYV. Over $12 million has been raised, helping the project literally develop from conceptual designs to a fully operational village that accepted its third class of 120+ students in mid-December. Our staff has been intimately involved and undyingly committed to the success of ASYV, which earned its place as a special project of JDC’s International Development Program.
The village’s final construction phase is almost complete. We look forward to sending a JDC mission there in 2011, during which time the volunteer housing unit will be formally dedicated to JDC.
In the past year, ASYV has received its own 501c3 status and formed a new Board that has assumed complete fiduciary and management responsibility for the village. Today, as planned from the first day we discussed the project, ASYV is a self-sustaining entity whose success speaks for itself.
After one of his trips to Rwanda in 2009, Will Recant, who served as the senior JDC professional overseeing the project, reported that upon arrival to Rwanda he no longer wrote the name of a hotel in Kigali on his customs forms; he was staying at the Agahozo-Shalom Youth Village in Rwamagana. The customs official studied Will’s form and then said, “Thank you so very much for bringing this special project to our country. I have heard of the village and we are all so very grateful.” In a meeting with the Rwandan and Israeli ambassadors to the United Nations, the bridges of friendship and peace built between the Rwandans, Israelis, and Americans were voiced at the highest levels.
ASYV has brought unique opportunities to JDC, including a partnership with the Liquidnet Corporation. Liquidnet has been deeply committed to the village, both in funding and in the personal involvement of its vast network of employees and their family members who have visited and worked in the village over the past four years.
But the true success of ASYV comes from the 500 kids who will live and learn there in 2011 when the village is at full capacity.
All of us at JDC, particularly Irv and I, are very proud of the many partnerships built through this project. The village is up and running; the children are receiving an education in a unique environment with a vision of “thinking far and seeing far”; and it is a groundbreaking model for education, bringing the very best practices developed in Israel and the West to Rwanda. This is what sustainable development is all about and we wish the new Board of the Agahozo-Shalom Youth Village continued success as they go forward from strength to strength.
For over two decades the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and other development experts have been vocal on their interest in initiating “sustainable development” programs around the world. It is with great pleasure that I write to you about JDC’s very own such project in Rwanda: the Agahozo-Shalom Youth Village (ASYV). On December 31, 2010, JDC turned over complete ownership of ASYV to that organization’s newly created Board of Directors, who are assuming full responsibility for this wonderful residential community for orphaned and vulnerable youth on a mountaintop outside of Kigali.
I have watched this program grow from a dream to a mesmerizing reality in the course of just three short years. And it all started with an innocent question….
Anne Heyman and her husband Seth Merrin (a son of JDC Board member Ed Merrin) sponsor a program at Tufts University called Voices of Moral Conscience. Each year, they bring in a special speaker through the Tufts Hillel who addresses the full campus. In 2007, they featured a Rwandan gentleman who talked about the 1994 genocide and the country’s subsequent development. When Anne Heyman asked about the greatest problem then facing the country, he offered a one word reply: “orphans.” In a country with a population of just over 8 million people, there were a startling 1.2 million children without parents.
Anne Heyman could not let the issue lie. She investigated how the Jewish community cared for our orphans following the Holocaust, and made her way to JDC. I told her of the unique model of Youth Aliyah and recommended she visit Chaim Peri at the Yemin Orde Youth Village near Haifa. Anne did so and continued to investigate whether or not this model, based on the principles of Tikkun Halev (Repair of the Heart) and Tikkun Olam (Repair of the World), could be replicated to help heal Rwanda’s orphaned children. Like the Holocaust orphans, many of these children had suffered trauma and the loss of family during the genocide in 1994, when more than 800,000 innocent Rwandan civilians were murdered.
Considerable research on Anne’s part showed that bringing this model to the heart of Rwanda was both feasible and much desired by the local community. Thus the Agahozo-Shalom Youth Village was on its way to becoming a reality. (Agahozo is Kinyarwandan for “the place where tears are dried.”)
JDC helped incubate the idea and worked closely with Anne and her newly developed management team, which oversaw the fundraising, construction, and first years of operation of ASYV. Over $12 million has been raised, helping the project literally develop from conceptual designs to a fully operational village that accepted its third class of 120+ students in mid-December. Our staff has been intimately involved and undyingly committed to the success of ASYV, which earned its place as a special project of JDC’s International Development Program.
The village’s final construction phase is almost complete. We look forward to sending a JDC mission there in 2011, during which time the volunteer housing unit will be formally dedicated to JDC.
In the past year, ASYV has received its own 501c3 status and formed a new Board that has assumed complete fiduciary and management responsibility for the village. Today, as planned from the first day we discussed the project, ASYV is a self-sustaining entity whose success speaks for itself.
After one of his trips to Rwanda in 2009, Will Recant, who served as the senior JDC professional overseeing the project, reported that upon arrival to Rwanda he no longer wrote the name of a hotel in Kigali on his customs forms; he was staying at the Agahozo-Shalom Youth Village in Rwamagana. The customs official studied Will’s form and then said, “Thank you so very much for bringing this special project to our country. I have heard of the village and we are all so very grateful.” In a meeting with the Rwandan and Israeli ambassadors to the United Nations, the bridges of friendship and peace built between the Rwandans, Israelis, and Americans were voiced at the highest levels.
ASYV has brought unique opportunities to JDC, including a partnership with the Liquidnet Corporation. Liquidnet has been deeply committed to the village, both in funding and in the personal involvement of its vast network of employees and their family members who have visited and worked in the village over the past four years.
But the true success of ASYV comes from the 500 kids who will live and learn there in 2011 when the village is at full capacity.
All of us at JDC, particularly Irv and I, are very proud of the many partnerships built through this project. The village is up and running; the children are receiving an education in a unique environment with a vision of “thinking far and seeing far”; and it is a groundbreaking model for education, bringing the very best practices developed in Israel and the West to Rwanda. This is what sustainable development is all about and we wish the new Board of the Agahozo-Shalom Youth Village continued success as they go forward from strength to strength.
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