In order to ask for support of the ORT program, not only must you understand the scope of the program and its offerings, but you need to be able to convey the information. Below, you’ll find some general points that you may wish to use when discussing the program with prospective givers.

1. ORT Israel is the largest of the World ORT networks, educating and training nearly 100,000 students in the 2001-2002 academic year.
2. With no end to the terror attacks in sight, ORT Israel staff members strive to maintain a sense of normalcy in the classroom. Special counseling programs have been put into place in many ORT Israel schools, despite the strain imposed on school resources. Creative ways have been found to alleviate the mounting stress in the students’ lives, with teachers encouraging students to organize concerts, folk dancing and comedy performances during school holidays. A program is also in place to help students and teachers deal with trauma by using art to express their emotions.
3. Economic growth declined from 6.4 percent in 2000 to minus 0.6 percent in 2001, an unprecedented drop. This directly affects ORT Israel students, where severe economic hardship is significantly damaging many pupils’ functioning as learners. Some students do not receive meals at home, coming to school hungry. Others take odd jobs at night to contribute to their family’s income, leaving them exhausted during daytime classroom time. Yet others who need transportation to school find it difficult to fund the rides; the result is either that they walk considerable distances or that in their frustration they give up school altogether.
4. Despite their personal hardships, ORT Israel’s students are committed to the future of their country and to ORT Israel’s success. ORT Israel Director General Zvi Peleg has enlisted students to do their part during these troubled times. ORT Israel has “adopted” primary schools in order to help the young students advance. Where parents can’t afford tutors, ORT students help them with their homework. ORT has built computer centers in the primary schools, with ORT students helping to teach the students how to use them. ORT Israel students serve as security guards once a month for kindergarten classrooms where parents are seeking protection.

Background
The day after George Bush gave the ultimatum to Saddam Hussein that he leave or military action would force him to leave, World ORT Director General Robert Singer was in Israel. During his visits to ORT schools, Singer was struck by the seemingly contradictory messages sent by the Israeli Government: One asked all Israeli citizens to carry gas masks with them at all times and the other, put out by the Government's Defense Cabinet, decided that schools would carry on lessons as normal.

When wearing gas masks in the classroom is considered “normal,” the world undoubtedly has been turned on its head. Singer visited two ORT Israel schools that day: ORT Hasharon in Binyamina and ORT Hannah Senesh in Haifa. In Binyamina, 50 percent of students attended and came with gas masks; in Haifa, 30 percent did so.
‘I very much hope that anyone who has never experienced this will never have to see young children coming to school with gas masks while they continue to study as though nothing is happening,” Singer said.

In some ways, that’s ORT’s forte: providing normalcy, stability and a promise for the future when everything else seems to have descended into chaos. Israel has been mired in economic problems that have made the lives of its citizens—and students—uncertain.

The Intifada, begun in October 2001, has hurt the Israeli economy tremendously: Costs for security have increased by NIS 6 billion, and the economy’s loss of revenue is more than NIS 30 billion.
Economic growth declined from 6.4 percent in 2000 to minus 0.6 percent in 2001, an unprecedented drop.

While the education of Israeli students is always a priority to the Jewish community, never has it been more important than today—and for so many reasons. The future of Israel lies in their hands. An educated population, with skills sought the world over, provides for a thriving, self-sufficient country. It means advances in technology that can be put toward business development, toward scientific advancement, toward defense.

But in Israel, like all over the world, ORT provides so much more than classrooms. It provides community. It provides food. It provides family. And, perhaps most importantly, it provides a promise of a better future.

ORT Israel recently set out to determine which students are in severe economic distress in order to provide what they need to remain in school. Some 4,000 pupils were found. And while an initial amount of NIS 750,000 has been raised, the sum to assist all of those identified is NIS 5 million. This money is critical to help our students in so many areas. Students who do not receive meals at home are too hungry to concentrate in the classroom. Others, trying to help their families make ends meet, forsake their education for odd jobs to help out. Other students are ashamed to come to school without books or shoes or appropriate clothes.

Despite their personal hardships, ORT Israel’s students are committed to the future of their country and to ORT Israel’s success.
ORT Israel Director General Zvi Peleg has enlisted students to do their part during these troubled times. ORT Israel has “adopted” the primary schools in order to help the young students there advance themselves. When parents can’t afford tutors, ORT students help them with their homework. ORT has built computer centers in the primary schools, with ORT students helping teach the students how to use them. ORT Israel students serve as security guards once a month for kindergarten classrooms where parents are seeking protection.

In a time of such despair, there is still so much hope. That’s where we come in: giving Israel hope through our ORT Israel Hope Campaign and other gifts to the ORT program worldwide.