In Their Own Words…

 

“Actually she has not eaten.  The principal said, ‘She will eat lunch with the other students in the school.’  I was so happy.  They were taking care of me as if I am a part of them.”  Emanuel, about his and his daughter, Esther’s, treatment upon arriving with nothing at the Tel Aviv Yafo Foundation-supported Bialik-Rogozin School after his wife was shot and killed in South Africa.

 

 

“We just had to find a safe place to stay… Here it is like all of the world coming together and there is peace.” 
Esther, about the Bialik-Rogozin School, which is featured in the 2011 Oscar-winning documentary Strangers No More.

 

 

 

“For us it is like a medicine.  We wait all week for Café Europa.”  Sappora, on a program the Tel Aviv Yafo Foundation supports at 4 different centers on Sunday evenings, where Holocaust survivors come to eat, joke, talk and dance. 

“It is my best day.”   Tomer says with tears in his eyes when learning that Tel Aviv Yafo Foundation will provide him with a scholarship towards his college degree.  He was formerly a Security Guard, worked towards his teaching certificate and is now working towards his degree but doesn't have the money for classes as he is supporting his mother, his family.

 

"She is not scared of me and all the time wants to be with me, not like others." Daniel, an autistic child, said about the goat he is feeding at a Tel Aviv Yafo Foundation-supported program providing animal therapy for children with special needs.

"This [senior center] is excellent because I am not alone like at home.  I come here every day and go to the gym here.” Victoria, 92, born in Istanbul, on how she feels about the Gonda Senior Center, established through the Tel Aviv Yafo Foundation. 

“I feel like it is my home.  If I couldn’t come here I would have asked them to find me a place just like here.”  11-year old Zelicha says of the Home Environment Center she attends every day after school, established by the Tel Aviv Yafo Foundation.  Most children there come from single-parent dysfunctional families and the Home Environment Center is one of the only places they feel safe.