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April 30, 2010
Bring classrooms to children
Ofanim works to strengthen Israeli kids’ belief in their abilities.
ELLEN FRANK
What happens when children are unable to get to the learning centres of bigger cities? They don’t have access to the technology or the opportunities and, often, they get left behind. We tend to see busing children to schools as the solution. But what about busing the classrooms to the children? This is exactly what the organization Ofanim is doing in Israel. They are retrofitting buses into classrooms/mobile labs and taking the classrooms to the kids, many of whom live on Israel’s borders, in small moshavim and in remote villages.
I fell in love with Ofanim via an e-mail from my cousin Paul, whom some of you might remember from my “Israel via wheelchair” story in this paper last October. He was the father of the bride and a big part of making it possible for me to be included in my Israeli family wedding. He is also the president and chairperson of Friends of Ofanim in the United States, so he sent me a blurb and their new promotional DVD. As ofanim means wheels in Hebrew, and I have spent my last five years working on accessibility issues with Sticks and Wheels Accessibility Services, it seems fitting that I should tell you about it.
Ofanim was started by Haim Emil Dahan, who describes his chance meeting with a professor from Ben-Gurion University as life changing. “Prof. Bergman was my angel. He changed my life by introducing me to computers but, more important, I think, he believed in me and gave me a sense of direction and was the role model I didn’t have at the time.”
That chance meeting was the seed for Ofanim, a nonprofit organization that works to rectify the lack of equality of opportunity in education through mobile classrooms. Its goal is to introduce children to the world of education and academic learning and to strengthen their belief in themselves and their abilities. The Ofanim folks believe that ability can be found anywhere. Five years ago, they started with two buses and 50 kids. In 2009, they had six buses and were reaching 1,600 students. This year, they are building two new labs and continue to grow. Each bus is equipped with computers and what’s needed to teach science, math, language and art. Also new this year is a bus dedicated to teaching robotics.
I am awed with the project – talk about examples of inclusion! Inclusion around socioeconomic status is different than inclusion around mobility issues, but is also very much the same. I know from using my wheelchair how much easier it is when I organize people and things to come to me. My family events are always in the common room in my building; I don’t need to worry about how to get somewhere, how to get home or if I can use the restroom when I am in my comfort zone.
Similarly, the kids who benefit from Ofanim’s services do not feel like outsiders when the buses drive into the villages – the kids are on their home turf, in their comfort zone. Once the kids are familiar with the technology, Ofanim also works to introduce them to institutions of higher learning, through tours, lectures and meetings with key individuals.
Israel, unbelievable as it may be, has become a country with one of the largest educational gaps in the world – between people of different socioeconomic backgrounds, nationalities, ethnic origins, length of time lived in Israel and place of residence. Only some 40 percent of students successfully complete matriculation exams at the end of high school. Education and knowledge remain the keys to breaking the cycle of poverty and reducing those gaps.
My cousin, Paul (Silberberg), speaks about this gap on the promotional video he sent me. “When the state of Israel was born over 60 years ago, the government put these immigrants all around the periphery to create ‘facts on the ground’ and for security on the borders. What happened is, so much has developed in the centre that the differences between haves and have-nots has been exaggerated beyond comprehension on the periphery. They can’t get the ear of the government, so these kids are left behind. It’s a tragedy really. The idea that Haim came up with is brilliant.”
As I write this article, I keep going back to the Israeli Ofanim website and watching YouTube videos of those big yellow buses traveling the highways and into villages and the kids racing onto the bus. I can’t capture those images in words. If you can find a few minutes, go look at the website. You can, of course, get lots more information there and you will fall in love with the images. Take a look and you can hear from the kids themselves what they love about Ofanim.
Dahan reminds people, “Rambam classifies eight levels of chesed. The highest level is teaching people some type of profession to take them out of poverty.”
I think this is yet another place we can learn from Israeli ingenuity. I know there are many educators reading this piece. British Columbia also has many remote, isolated villages and towns away from the urban centres. I think there are many ideas that could be replicated here. For more information, visit friendsofofanim.org.
Ellen Frank is a writer, activist, mother, grandmother and retired travel agent. She has lived with multiple sclerosis since 1988 and knows well how hard it is to get around with limited mobility. She is the author of Sticks and Wheels: A Guide to Accessible Travel on the Lower Sunshine Coast (Ouzel Publishing, 2006) and features information on accessibility services on her website, sticksandwheels.net.
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