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JWF: Grants AwardedThrough strategic and effective grant-making, the JWF funds programs and projects that work to improve the status of Jewish women and girls. Most significantly, these programs proactively address the source of the varied challenges this group faces. We have funded important educational initiatives for teenage girls in South Palm Beach County, deepening their knowledge of Judaism and Jewish culture while helping them integrate Jewish values into their lives. In Israel, we helped treat abused girls to break the cycle of child abuse and domestic violence and supported a training program giving immigrant Ethiopian women the opportunity to enter the workforce to support their families. 2011 Grantee Timeline:
HERE IN OUR COMMUNITY SAVVY an innovative self Defense and self actualization program for teenage girls and adult women with special needs, Adolph & Rose Levis Jewish Community Center OVERSEAS Empowerment Program for Teenage Girls at Risk, Ethiopian National ProjectFunding: $14,000 Serves: 20 girls ages 15-20 in Kiryat Bialik, Israel Empowerment Program for At Risk Women for College Completion, The American Committee for Shenkar College in Israel, Inc Funding: $18,000 Serves: 30 women ages 22-32 in Ramat Gan, Israel Women’s Health Empowerment Project, America Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, JDC Funding: $20,000 Serves: undetermined number of women ages 15-65 in Central Russia Parental Supervision and Empowerment Program for Abusive or Neglectful Single Mothers, ELI The Israel Association for Child Protection Funding: $15,000 Serves: 20 women and 12 girls ages 1-45 in Tel Aviv, Israel Girls for Girls, Sapir Academic College Funding: $20,000 Serves: 45 woman ages 17-23 in Southern Israel Empowering Jewish Girls at Risk, Israel Help & Education Center Funding: $15,000 Serves: 200 girls ages 5-12 in Kiryat Gat, Israel HERE IN OUR COMMUNITY Employment Program for Women with Disabilities, JARC SAVVY an innovative self Defense and self actualization program for teenage girls and adult women with special needs Adolph & Rose Levis JCC OVERSEAS Abuse prevention program, Hamifal Educational Children’s Homes Empowering Jewish Girls at risk through Education Israel Help and Education Center The Israel Breast Health Program, Your Health is in your Hands; Bishvilaych Women’s Health Organization
GRANTS AWARDED FOR 2009 Finding Our Voices
Beyond Words Provides an opportunity for participants to see that beyond all the differences in culture, tradition and religion they share much more as women, mothers, and wives. This program focuses on Israeli and Arab women in minority and disadvantaged groups that have disproportionately high rates of unemployment, poverty, health problems and abuse of basic rights. Funding: $10,000.00
Serves: 30 Jewish women and 30 Arab women, ages 20-50, in Nazareth and Tel Aviv, Israel IMPACT: Full Power-Self Defense Training for At-Risk Teenage Girls El Ha Lev-Israel Women’s Martial Arts Federation This program works to reduce the number of girls that become victims of abuse and violence, both inside and outside the home, through a variety of strategies. They include a combination of self-defense training and martial arts classes, lectures, workshops while also modeling healthy relationships. The girls learn how to be assertive and make decisions under pressure. Self-defense training is one method that has been shown to be effective in reducing the rates of violence and abuse against girls and women. Funding: $10,000.00 Serves: 285 teenage girls, ages 13-18, in Israel
Outreach and Child Protection Israel Association for Child Protection (ELI) Using their already successful child abuse prevention curriculum within the Israeli school system, this program has been adapted to reach out to and meet the needs of Orthodox girls. Each school identifies one staff person (educator, counselor or psychologist) to work with and be trained by the professionals of ELI to serve as an ongoing resource within the school, providing for an infrastructure of detecting abuse and continuing abuse prevention. An array of awareness materials, such as coloring books on abuse prevention and bookmarks printed with ELI’s toll free helpline information, are distributed to the students through their classes. Funding: $10,000.00 Serves: 425 school-aged girls in Israel Business Incubator: Growing Women’s Micro Enterprises in Northern Israel Economic Empowerment for Women (EEW) This an ehancement of the Access to Markets program we funded in 2008. EEW’s mission is to supply low income women in Israel with the knowledge and tools to create their own small businesses as a means for gaining financial independence and alleviating the cycle of poverty in which they live. The Business incubator works with those women who have already demonstrated some success through micro enterprise and provides them with more intensive business training tools and long term support to fulfill their maximum economic potential. Being the first low-income Women's Business Incubator of its kind in Israel, this project will serve as a replicable role model for how to maximize the potential of micro entrepreneurship. Funding: $10,000.00 Serves: 33 Jewish and 17 Arab women, ages 40-55, in Northern Israel (Haifa and its surrounding areas) Girl to Girl: Empowerment Initiative for Ethiopian Teens American Friends of Orr Shalom This is a workshop for Ethiopian teenage girls who will be “aging out” of the Orr Shalom’s foster home to prepare them for independent living, the army and/or national service. These girls had been removed from their families by the courts due to abuse, neglect or abandonment so Orr Shalom becomes their family. They will participate in a series of workshops, over 2 years, to teach them how to secure and retain jobs, manage budgets, learn responsible sexual behavior and avoid sexual exploitation, in addition to fundamental basic life skills. This is a pilot program, which if successful, will be replicated for all Ethiopian girls in Shalom Orr’s therapeutic homes. Funding: $10,000.00 Serves: 10 Ethiopian girls, ages 12-18, at an Orr Shalom home in Israel Leadership and Empowerment Program for Girls at High Risk Israel Children’s Centers, Inc. Through this program they aim to teach young girls positive thinking using tennis as a catalyst. Winning a tennis match build self esteem, but sometime losing and failing can prove to be an even more important lesson. Learning from mistakes, and cultivating the inner desire to do better after losing, can lead to positive solutions that many of these girls would have never thought possible. Funding: $10,000.00 Serves: 10 girls at risk, ages 14-16, in Israel The Teen Pregnancy Empowerment Program American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC) Previously we had funded the JDC's "Girls on the Map" and last year we funded Girl’s Space; both of these programs are responses to the lack of comprehensive services for at-risk teenage girls in Israel. As part of the “Girls on the Map” initiative, this program was first created as a pilot in February, 2007 to respond to gaps in hospital-based social services for teenage girls with unwanted pregnancies and to initiate collaboration between hospitals and community services on behalf of these girls. This initiative addresses the emotional and physical health of pregnant at risk teenage girls who are seeking to terminate their pregnancies, aims to create innovative programs for them, increases their accessibility to existing services, and adapts and expands Israel's system-wide response to their special needs. Some of the goals of the program include developing preventing recurring unwanted pregnancies amongst this group, training hospital staff to sensitively and effectively assist these pregnant teenagers and establishing standards for assisting pregnant teenagers from a culturally and emotionally sensitive perspective. Funded: $10,000.00 Serves: 500 teenage girls throughout Israel Life Skills Empowerment Experiential Workshops for Girls at Risk in” Warm Houses” Israel Family Planning Association (IFPA) A full member of the International Planned Parenthood Federation, IFPA is the main voluntary organization in Israel in the area of reproductive health and rights. This program provides workshops in sexuality, couple relations and intimacy; to at risk girls, identified by the Ministry of Social Welfare. who live in “warm houses” throughout Israel. Workshops are conducted with an intercultural emphasis, displaying sensitivity towards cultural and social nuances. In addition to the workshops, the participants will have the opportunity to receive discrete personal counseling from a Hebrew or Russian speaking professional at the association's hotline. This program is an outlet to enable these girls to have healthier relationships based on mutual respect, rather than on victimization and provides information, guidance and support about healthy and responsible sexuality in order to reduce irresponsible sexual behaviors. Funded: $10,000.00 Serves: 300 at-risk girls, ages 13-18, throughout Israel The Women’s Health Empowerment Program (WHEP) American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC) In many former Communist countries, the discussion of negative health issues, especially those experienced by women – such as cancer – is strongly discouraged and avoided. Many women living with breast cancer do not receive the appropriate information regarding treatment options and they are treated with such insensitivity by medical professionals due to a lack of any sensitivity training. There is a social stigma surrounding the disease so there are little or no women’s breast cancer support groups. WHEP is an innovative public education movement that conducts programs which encourage the early detection of breast cancer as well as creating support services by and for women with breast cancer. In this model breast cancer survivors serve as models of survivorship amidst a culture where cancer is not discussed. They live demonstrating both that there is life after breast cancer and that opportunities exist for cancer survivors to develop programs that help themselves. This program also focuses on strengthening doctor-patient communication and creating partnerships between and among patients and the medical and health communities. These projects serve the function of educating women about the importance of early detection and treatment, providing women and their families with a support network, and empowering them to lobby for their interests and communicate with their service providers and receive better care. Breast cancer is a disease that knows no boundaries. Anyone who has suffered or is currently suffering from breast cancer is eligible to participate in this program, regardless of religious affiliation or nationality. Funded: $10,000.00 The Susan G. Komen Foundation will be matching our contribution, dollar for dollar, enabling us to double our impact in this initiative. Serves: 500 Bosnian, Jewish Croat, Muslim and Serb women, ages 17-70, in Bosnia-Herzegovina * This grant was made in memory of our immediate past Chair, Francine R. Cole, who passed away on Sept. 6, 2008, after a long battle with breast cancer. GRANTS AWARDED FOR 2008 Outreach and Child Protection Israel Association for Child Protection (ELI) Using their already successful child abuse prevention curriculum within the Israeli school system, this program has been adapted to reach out to and meet the needs of Orthodox girls. Each school identifies one staff person (educator, counselor or psychologist) to work with and be trained by the professionals of ELI to serve as an ongoing resource within the school, providing for an infrastructure of detecting abuse and continuing abuse prevention. An array of awareness materials, such as coloring books on abuse prevention and bookmarks printed with ELI’s toll free helpline information, are distributed to the students through their classes. Funding: $10,000.00 Serves: 425 school-aged girls in Israel Business Incubator: Growing Women’s Micro Enterprises in Northern Israel Economic Empowerment for Women (EEW) This an ehancement of the Access to Markets program we funded in 2008. EEW’s mission is to supply low income women in Israel with the knowledge and tools to create their own small businesses as a means for gaining financial independence and alleviating the cycle of poverty in which they live. The Business incubator works with those women who have already demonstrated some success through micro enterprise and provides them with more intensive business training tools and long term support to fulfill their maximum economic potential. Being the first low-income Women's Business Incubator of its kind in Israel, this project will serve as a replicable role model for how to maximize the potential of micro entrepreneurship. Funding: $10,000.00 Serves: 33 Jewish and 17 Arab women, ages 40-55, in Northern Israel (Haifa and its surrounding areas) Girl to Girl: Empowerment Initiative for Ethiopian Teens American Friends of Orr Shalom This is a workshop for Ethiopian teenage girls who will be “aging out” of the Orr Shalom’s foster home to prepare them for independent living, the army and/or national service. These girls had been removed from their families by the courts due to abuse, neglect or abandonment so Orr Shalom becomes their family. They will participate in a series of workshops, over 2 years, to teach them how to secure and retain jobs, manage budgets, learn responsible sexual behavior and avoid sexual exploitation, in addition to fundamental basic life skills. This is a pilot program, which if successful, will be replicated for all Ethiopian girls in Shalom Orr’s therapeutic homes. Funding: $10,000.00 Serves: 10 Ethiopian girls, ages 12-18, at an Orr Shalom home in Israel Leadership and Empowerment Program for Girls at High Risk Israel Children’s Centers, Inc. Through this program they aim to teach young girls positive thinking using tennis as a catalyst. Winning a tennis match build self esteem, but sometime losing and failing can prove to be an even more important lesson. Learning from mistakes, and cultivating the inner desire to do better after losing, can lead to positive solutions that many of these girls would have never thought possible. Funding: $10,000.00
Serves: 10 girls at risk, ages 14-16, in Israel
The Teen Pregnancy Empowerment Program
American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC) Previously we had funded the JDC's "Girls on the Map" and last year we funded Girl’s Space; both of these programs are responses to the lack of comprehensive services for at-risk teenage girls in Israel. As part of the “Girls on the Map” initiative, this program was first created as a pilot in February, 2007 to respond to gaps in hospital-based social services for teenage girls with unwanted pregnancies and to initiate collaboration between hospitals and community services on behalf of these girls. This initiative addresses the emotional and physical health of pregnant at risk teenage girls who are seeking to terminate their pregnancies, aims to create innovative programs for them, increases their accessibility to existing services, and adapts and expands Israel's system-wide response to their special needs. Some of the goals of the program include developing preventing recurring unwanted pregnancies amongst this group, training hospital staff to sensitively and effectively assist these pregnant teenagers and establishing standards for assisting pregnant teenagers from a culturally and emotionally sensitive perspective. Funded: $10,000.00
Serves: 500 teenage girls throughout Israel Life Skills Empowerment Experiential Workshops for Girls at Risk in” Warm Houses”
Israel Family Planning Association (IFPA) A full member of the International Planned Parenthood Federation, IFPA is the main voluntary organization in Israel in the area of reproductive health and rights. This program provides workshops in sexuality, couple relations and intimacy; to at risk girls, identified by the Ministry of Social Welfare. who live in “warm houses” throughout Israel. Workshops are conducted with an intercultural emphasis, displaying sensitivity towards cultural and social nuances. In addition to the workshops, the participants will have the opportunity to receive discrete personal counseling from a Hebrew or Russian speaking professional at the association's hotline. This program is an outlet to enable these girls to have healthier relationships based on mutual respect, rather than on victimization and provides information, guidance and support about healthy and responsible sexuality in order to reduce irresponsible sexual behaviors. Funded: $10,000.00 Serves: 300 at-risk girls, ages 13-18, throughout Israel The Women’s Health Empowerment Program (WHEP) American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC) In many former Communist countries, the discussion of negative health issues, especially those experienced by women – such as cancer – is strongly discouraged and avoided. Many women living with breast cancer do not receive the appropriate information regarding treatment options and they are treated with such insensitivity by medical professionals due to a lack of any sensitivity training. There is a social stigma surrounding the disease so there are little or no women’s breast cancer support groups. WHEP is an innovative public education movement that conducts programs which encourage the early detection of breast cancer as well as creating support services by and for women with breast cancer. In this model breast cancer survivors serve as models of survivorship amidst a culture where cancer is not discussed. They live demonstrating both that there is life after breast cancer and that opportunities exist for cancer survivors to develop programs that help themselves. This program also focuses on strengthening doctor-patient communication and creating partnerships between and among patients and the medical and health communities. These projects serve the function of educating women about the importance of early detection and treatment, providing women and their families with a support network, and empowering them to lobby for their interests and communicate with their service providers and receive better care. Breast cancer is a disease that knows no boundaries. Anyone who has suffered or is currently suffering from breast cancer is eligible to participate in this program, regardless of religious affiliation or nationality. Funded: $10,000.00. The Susan G. Komen Foundation will be matching our contribution, dollar for dollar, enabling us to double our impact in this initiative.
Serves: 500 Bosnian, Jewish Croat, Muslim and Serb women, ages 17-70, in Bosnia-Herzegovina
* This grant was made in memory of our immediate past Chair, Francine R. Cole, who passed away on Sept. 6, 2008, after a long battle with breast cancer.
Access to Markets Economic Empowerment for Women Economic Empowerment for Women was the first to provide business training to low income women in Israel. Sponsored training programs have been for recent immigrants and ultra orthodox women assisting them to gain the knowledge and the tools necessary for gaining self-sufficiency and alleviating their cycle of poverty. Most of these businesses are located at the women’s homes and focus on areas of childhood, food catering services, women’s clothing, cosmetics and crafts. It’s through the development of micro enterprise projects have enabled women to develop and secure incomes, reducing economic dependency and bolstering their self esteem. This program empowers many women to make their own life decisions. The Access to Markets (ATM) program was established to counter issues being faced by EEW graduates and micro-entrepreneurs and loan recipients many require a social support network that helps them to cope and overcome challenges related to the stressful pressures of poverty and financial distress. Many female micro entrepreneurs lack access to industry, and are isolated from lucrative markets, without connections to key players many women are prevented from breaking through the glass ceiling. ATM provides opportunities for women to develop expand their businesses in order to make a decent income to ensure financial independence. The program serves 225 to 260 women, ages 25-65 and the program is located in Haifa, Kiryat Bialik and Kiryat Yam, Israel.
Funding: $10,000.00 provides, paying for a portion of their seminars ($900.00), the cost for their business Development Group($5,000.00), One on one business consultations ($3,100.00) and 4 Coaching Sessions for 3 groups of women. A Bridge to Communication: Empowering Female Professionals from the Former Soviet Union to become moderators on intimacy & sexuality as life skills for young women The Israel Family Planning Association (IFPA) Massive immigration from the FSU has brought severe socio-economic consequences to adolescent women undergoing the immigration process to Israel. Among these consequences are drastic social and cultural challenges that can be very difficult when compounded with the normal pressures of being a female teenager. For many families there are constant tensions as a result of poverty, communication, and lack of information about sexual issues. The goal of this program is to communicate to young women in their native language about family planning and sexual issues. To assist them in understanding family planning, sexually responsibility, healthy relationships and other important life skills. Many of these young women often feel that they have no place to turn, to ask questions, or seek help. All participants will be trained to become moderators in the “Bridge to Communication Program.” Participants are young immigrant women themselves who completed their medical studies in the FSU before making aliya and did not pass the retraining course to practice medicine in Israel. This program is awarded on a scholarship basis to these participants that will receive training and then interface with teens and young women from the FSU that a have made aliya to educate and influence other women to educate and guide girls at risk. The program serves 20 women directly; aged 30-50 but ultimately reach far more adolescent/teens and young women approximately 4000. “A bridge to Communication” is based in Tel Aviv, Israel. Once this program has been successfully completed these trainers will work in absorption centers, with the ministry of Welfare’s Department for Girls and Israel Family Planning Association To foster empowerment of immigrant women from the FSU in Israeli society, to raise important adolescence related issues with immigrant youth so that they can maintain healthy and responsible sexual practices, lessening the dangers of STDs, unwanted pregnancies, exploitation, sexual violence and trafficking.
Funding: in the amount of $10,000.00 Girl’s Space (A component of the Girls on the Map Initiative) American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC) The JDC works in partnership with the Israeli government as well as local agencies to help them better care for venerable populations. Out of 313,000 girls in Israel an estimated 30,000 are in distress their ages range from12 to 18. Some have experienced sexual abuse, incest, domestic violence, sexual identity conflicts and self risk behaviors. All this in addition to the adaptation to a new culture creating extra hardships for adolescent girls. Intervention is necessary; girls in distress often have low self esteem, and behaviors that are likely to endanger their own physical health and emotional well being. In response to this overwhelming figure the JDC had designed a comprehensive services are available to at risk teenage girls in Israel Ashalim-JDC unit which develops programs for teenage girls launched in 2002. This program creates innovative instruct for teenage girls at risk increasing their accessibility to existing programs. They recognize girls’ needs are different than that of teenage boys. Girls Space will incorporates in ten junior high schools in five cities and provides a space for girls and by girls where social and psycho-educational activities will be offered to 7th and 8th grade girls by girls in 11th and 12th grades. The older girls will be chosen for their leadership potential, and serve as mentors facilitating Girls’ Space activities and using a model of peer support. They believe that empowering girls in a school setting, will help to detect younger girls who are in distress, and respond to their needs with additional services rapidly. The goal of Girl Space is to include early prevention within Israeli schools to decrease social isolation; while building a community network that is emotionally sensitive to gender issues while empowering girls an estimated 500 girls will be served by this program. The Girls Space Program will be located in Lod, Ramla, Rishon Lezion, Ness Ziona, Kiryat Gat, Ashdod and Rehovot. Funding of: $10,000.00 will be used toward the training program for school staff and mentors enabling Jewish Women’s Foundation to share a fundamental role in this program’s initial development and formation. GRANTS AWARDED FOR 2007
GRANTS AWARDED FOR 2006
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Jewish Women's Foundation (JWF) Start Here:
JWF Co-Chairs: Ann Kelman & Mara Reuben JWF Website: www.jewishboca.org/jwf 
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Synagogues & Temples
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