The first KKL-JNF House for Excellence in Israel’s southern region will be built in Kiryat Malachi. This KKL-JNF House is the second of ten to be built in Israel’s social and geographical periphery. This new center is slated for completion in less than a year and will become a focus of educational enrichment and empowerment of the city’s young people and the entire community.
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At a meeting that took place on Thursday, November 15, representatives of KKL-JNF and the Kiryat Malachi municipality discussed building a KKL-JNF House for the city’s youth. KKL-JNF World Chairman Daniel Atar and Mayor Eliyahu Zohar were present at the meeting. Avi Musan, the KKL-JNF official responsible for building KKL-JNF Houses for Excellence, explained to everyone present about the building process and yearly work plan in detail.
Musan said that the goal is to open a KKL-JNF House for Excellence in Kiryat Malachi by September 2019, the beginning of the next school year. This KKL-JNF House will be the first such center to be built in the south, and the second KKL-JNF House in all of Israel. The first KKL-JNF house was built in early 2018 in Upper Nazareth (Nazareth Illit), where it has already become a thriving social and educational hub for youth.
The house to be built in Kiryat Malachi is part of KKL-JNF’s program to support informal education in Israel. The purpose of the Houses for Excellence is to allow students in the tenth to twelfth grades to spend time in an environment where they can access afternoon activities, help in their studies and resources to prepare for matriculation exams on difference subjects. The KKL-JNF House for Excellence will be a place for enrichment. It will provide young people with a unique educational framework and will help strengthen them and encourage them to excel in their studies and their social relations. It will also empower them to enlist for meaningful military duty and to dream big.
KKL-JNF World Chairman Daniel Atar declared that the KKL-JNF House will be “a home that will help give young people skills and an opportunity to realize their inner potential. KKL-JNF is committed to the development and expansion of projects related to informal education in Israel’s social and geographical periphery, with the aim of narrowing gaps and providing equal opportunity for every child, everywhere. KKL-JNF intends to continue building and operating additional KKL-JNF houses in other cities.”
KKL-JNF Houses director Avi Musan added: “At our meeting with Mayor Eliyahu Zohar and local educators, we presented the work plan for opening a KKL-JNF House. The goal is to agree on all the details by January, start building in February, and to inaugurate the house at the beginning of the next school year, in September 2019. The house will be built next to the city’s central park and will be a focal point for all the city’s young people. The first KKL-JNF House was opened in Nazareth Illit a year ago. It’s amazing to see just how much progress has been made by the youth who come to activities at the house – they improve their grades, excel in their studies, are more connected to society and the community, and have a better understanding of the importance of being socially involved.”