Israel Active

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.

(thanks to Yoeli) Nigeria’s efforts to curb terrorist activities in some parts of the country will soon be boosted as a collaborative endeavour with Israel comes alive. Israeli’s Ambassador to Nigeria, Moshe Ram said that no more details could be given for security reasons.

Indian Minister for Urban Development Kamal Nath oversees urban planning in India, which has over 50 cities of more than one million residents. Nath says that joint Israeli-Indian projects include in water, one of India's greatest challenges today.

Mehnaz Afridi is director of Holocaust studies at Manhattan College. She previously did a five-week fellowship at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem.

The five Arab players (2 girls and 3 boys) on the Metulla junior ice hockey team come from the Golan Heights and are not even Israeli citizens. “When you play together, you forget that you are Arabs and Jews,” said Mayyas Sabag, a 12-year-old forward from the Druse village of Majdal Shams.