Ayalim – Bringing young adults to live and volunteer in the toughest places in Israel to serve as its newest Pioneers.
Founded in 2002, The Ayalim Association began as the dream of five young Israelis, recently released from their army service, who envisioned Israel’s next generation in the Negev. They pooled their meager release funds together to purchase a trailer in the remote desert Moshav of Ashalim and there planted the seeds for a national movement to grow.
Ayalim’s founders recognized that the Zionist ethos that had guided Israel’s founding generation and supported its next generation to defend it, was still calling the Israeli youth of the 21st century to work. They saw the critical need for inspiring Israel’s youth to action and strengthening the struggling communities of the country’s geographic and social periphery overlooked by public attention.
Established at the time of the second Intifada, two of their friends, Eyal and Yael, were intending to build their young family in the Negev when they were killed in a terrorist attack. The organization ‘Ayalim’ is an honor to their name and their pioneering vision.
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The establishment of Student Villages constitutes the foundation for social involvement and the creation of new permanent communities. The students in our villages integrate community building and social outreach, thereby promoting society and education in the Negev and Galilee. In return for academic scholarships and subsidized housing in the villages, each student in Ayalim volunteers with children in development towns and distressed neighborhoods, and takes part in the association’s special projects, with the understanding that the projects’ success depends on the fusion of individual needs with national objectives.
To date, there are more than 800 students participating in the Ayalim Association, living and volunteering in 14 student and entrepreneur villages throughout the Negev and Galilee. The students in these villages are already generating a tangible change in the Israeli periphery on the micro scale, and in the future of the State of Israel on the macro.
Most of the Student Villages are built within existing communities such as the development towns of Yeruham, Dimona, and Ofakim with the aim of strengthening their social and educational frameworks. However, recently Ayalim has also built its own settlement in the middle of the Negev known as Shizaf.
Ayalim students work in several projects in the communities surrounding their Student Villages. In each Student village, students operate an Ofarim Family Center that offers after-school activities, neighborhood festivals and educational tutoring to local children. In addition to the Family Centers, the students also run a unique and interactive greenhouse project in schools outside of their village. Through the greenhouse project, special education and at-risk youth are taken out of the classroom and given alternative learning methods that allows them to give back to their school.
The Ayalim Association partners with the national Per’ach program to match university students in a ‘Big Brother/Big Sister’ mentoring relationship with local children in the communities in which the Student Villages are situated. Through the opportunity of one-on-one tutoring, the children receive specialized social and educational attention and Ayalim students personalize their service through an individual bond outside their studies and village duties, which in turn opens them to the children’s family and broader relationships in the community.
The array of social activities operated by Ayalim grew out of the desire to deal with the difficulties that are part and parcel of living in the peripheral areas of the country, which suffer from low priority on the public agenda. The Ayalim Association sees social involvement as one of the most significant ways for students to connect with their surroundings and their neighbors. The Association therefore acts to foster continuous relationships between the students and various populations in the periphery. Ayalim’s students commit to giving 500 hours annually and in return they receive not only tuition and subsidized housing, but also a chance to impact the lives of over 20,000 children and youth in the Negev and the Galilee.
We invite you to come visit our villages and join us in our efforts to create a better future for the Negev, the Galilee and the State of Israel. You are also welcome to click here to support us.
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Ayalim
