Israel Active

After three years of caring for thousands of sick patients in Africa, gynaecologist Dr. Avigail Maayani has returned to Israel to treat African refugees in Tel Aviv.

21,500 Palestinian Arab children from Judea and Samaria were treated in Israeli hospitals in 2011, a 171% increase from 2010. They are included in the 200,000 PA residents given permits to enter Israel for medical treatment last year.

Muslim, Jewish and Christian clerics gathered in Israel’s capital city for the Interfaith Climate and Energy Conference. The event promoted cooperation among spiritual leaders regarding reinforcing the importance of environmental protection among their individual communities.

On Israel’s ‘Good Deeds Day’, US Ambassador to Israel Dan Shapiro visited the unique Israeli organization that develops and provides services annually for some 30,000 children and adults (including Israeli Arabs) with developmental disabilities. He praised Beit Issie Shapiro as an example of US-Israeli collaboration that really touched people.

Israel’s broadcaster Reshet Bet is video-taping its popular current affairs program “Hakol Diburim” (It’s All Talk). The program is then broadcast live on the IBA website, with simultaneous translation into sign language. 10% of Israel’s population could benefit.

Despite being blind, Shlomi Lazmy is able to enjoy ten-pin bowling to the full, with the aid of a homemade guide rail. A former competitor in the Paraolympics, Shlomi is a member of Mishkan HaYazamut, an organisation where about 40 people with disabilities interact with Israeli schoolchildren.

Two senior physicians from Jerusalem’s Shaare Zedek Medical Center are in the Ethiopian city of Gondar on a medical relief mission. They are diagnosing sick children using an advanced heart echocardiograph monitor being dedicated for use in the local hospital.

What began with over 7,000 participants in Israel in 2007 has turned into a worldwide celebration with 160,000 do-gooders last year across the globe volunteering in everything from cleaning nature reserves and donating blood to reading to youth-at-risk.

All members of Kibbutz Kishorit have been diagnosed with a mental or emotional challenge; some have a physical challenge as well. But the 150 members live much as those on any other kibbutz. They go to work, eat communal meals, and enjoy activities such as yoga and acting in plays. Each has an assigned social worker. (A VGNI first for this controversial site.)

Israel’s Energy and Water Minister Uzi Landau is to chair a high-level intergovernmental session on Wastewater management at the 6th World Water Forum in Marseilles. If the UK representative listens to him, he may be able to prevent the hosepipe ban he announced earlier in the month.