ESRA Students Scholarship Ceremony

The scholarship ceremony for ESRA's Students Build a Community Projects in Netanya was held at the community center in Hefzibah.

The three projects, which are run jointly by ESRA and the Netanya Municipality, are helping to empower three distressed communities in Netanya by giving our hand-picked students free accommodation in these areas.

A total of 28 university students are living in these neighborhoods, mentoring both socially and academically a total of 112 3rd to 6th grade pupils.

Out of these 28 students, seven this year received additional ESRA scholarships of NIS 10,000 each for extra work they will be doing in reaching out to the entire community.

The evening started with an insight into ESRA's varied projects in the Hefzibah Community Center where our 30+ visitors were able to visit the Sewing Center – "bursting at the seams" with 10 adult Ethiopian men and women very busily making clothes under the expert eye of Varda Mendelsohn the sewing teacher.

We then popped in to the computer room – another very successful ESRA project, by-passed the Right Track Center as the teacher there was preparing the kids for a test, and returned to the hall with a much better understanding of how ESRA is supporting this community.

We were then treated to a lively dance by our new Amharic Dance Group of 10 to 12 year olds.

They have only been together for a month, but under the guidance of Li-chen, their professional dance teacher, together with Aviva Frydman our ESRA coordinator, they delighted us with their performance.

The main attraction of the evening was ... the scholarships. 

In a very warm and impressive ceremony, the students took the stage one at a time to tell us about their studies, their "children" that they are mentoring, and the activities they will be doing for their extra scholarship.

The students didn't need any prompting to wow the audience with their energy, enthusiasm and dedication to the project.

Scholarship checks were handed to each student by 'their' sponsor:

■The Tel Aviv Branch of ESRA which donated a scholarship to Adis Mekonen in memory of Fran Framholz, a good friend and active member of their committee.

■The Netanya Branch of ESRA, representatives of the Isaacs Fund, in honor of Mr Edward Cohen's 75th birthday.

■The Appelbaum fund for Projects of Excellence; The Jan Gaines evaluation and activity fund, and of course, ESRA.

Commented Gillian Heron: "It was a great evening. I am always stimulated when I go to Hefzibah. It is a very special place, and when one listened to the students one can see why. Because of their dedication and enthusiasm, it is improving. Yes, Students Build a Community is an amazing project and in my mind reigns supreme."