Israel Active

The Citi Foundation is investing around NIS 1.5 million in PresenTense Israel, a company that encourages social entrepreneurship and technology in Israel’s minorities and the disabled. It will help PresenTense’s programs for Israeli-Arabs in Haifa and Jaffa.

The BBC has highlighted the increasing number of Israel’s ultra-Orthodox Haredi Jews who are proving successful in Israel's tech start-up sector.  Quite positive for the BBC.

When Israeli violinist Itzhak Perlman donated his $1 million Genesis Prize to disabled projects, it inspired a matching $1 million grant from the “Breaking Barriers” program of the Jewish Funders Network. Another $1 million was donated by Roman Abramovich.

In 2002, there were only four Ethiopian-Israelis working in the Israeli high-tech scene. Today, over 400 young Ethiopian-Israeli professionals are pursuing careers in Israeli high-tech firms, thanks to training by Tech-Career - an NGO founded on Kibbutz Nachshon.

I reported previously on Israel’s Dr Bill Clark combating poaching in Kenya. Now another Israeli, Ofir Drori, has launched the EAGLE network and put 1300 poachers behind bars in Cameroon, Republic of Congo, Gabon, Benin, Togo, Guinea, Senegal, Uganda and Madagascar.

34-year-old Christian Arab Maron Halifah from Haifa is to become the legal advisor to the Ministry of Development in the Periphery, the Negev and the Galilee, making him the first Arab ever to occupy the position of a legal advisor in a government office.

Lyonpo Yeshey Dorji of Bhutan is the first minister from South Asia’s “Forbidden Kingdom” to visit the Jewish State.  He attended the graduation of Bhutanese students from the apprenticeship program of Israel’s AgroStudies and also visited several Israeli farms. Bhutan has no formal diplomatic relations with Israel.

10 Israeli companies are presenting their innovations to help Africa at a special exhibition at the UN. They include a portable greenhouse, polluted water detection technology, a device to produce water from air, solar tech to pump water and cancer diagnosis technology.

President Juan Orlando Hernandez of Honduras said his country has signed an agreement with Israel for “cutting-edge technology” to help his army fight organized crime.  Hernandez said the agreement will be used to battle “the highest levels of crime in the last 15 years.”

Israel humanitarian organization IsraAID is operating in the Kurdish Region of Iraq (KRI), supporting displaced Christians and Yazidis living in camps and temporary shelters.  They are distributing blankets, mattresses and other emergency supplies.