Hadar and Natan meet with the Mayor

Our young emissaries or "Shinshinim" (Shnat sherut - year of service) Natan Mish and Hadar Madnick were at the Municipality yesterday to say goodbye before they leave to spend a year in Baltimore.

Hadar and Natan will be spending the year working in schools and in the community, strengthening the connection between Ashkelon and Baltimore. They will be replacing Tal Bouhnik and Liron Menashe, our first ever shinshinim, who will be returning home to be drafted into the army. Mayor Benny Vaknin praised the work of Tal and Liron and told the new shinshinim how proud he was to be sending such fine young people to represent Ashkelon and wished Hadar and Natan good luck for their year ahead in Baltimore.

Avner Maimon, Natan Mish, Mayor Benny Vaknin, Hadar Madnick, Sigal Ariely, Dafna Biton

nicole

Reading Encouragement Project - Opening Ceremony

Shinshinim Visit Home

Our "Shinshinim" (Young Emissaries), Tal Bouhnik and Liron Menashe, are spending a year volunteering in the Baltimore Jewish Community.

Midway in their stay, they came home to Ashkelon for two weeks to spend time with family and friends and catch up with all the news and new projects in Ashkelon. They will be meeting with the Youth Council, with the Diller Leadership Teens, attending the opening of the Reading Encouragement Project and generally running around seeing everyone and everything!

Today they were at the Municipality to see Sigal and meet Mayor Benny Vaknin, who was elected while they were away. (Nicole)

Daphna Biton, Avner Maimon, Liron Menashe, Mayor Benny Vaknin, Tal Bouhnik, Sigal Ariely, Yakov Attias

DILLER Teens 2009

We are pleased to have finally completed the process of forming our group of 20 kids for this year's Diller CSI Program. This is the 4th year that we are running the program in Ashkelon and Baltimore.

We interviewed many teens and held two 3-hour workshops before finally undertaking the task of choosing 20 teens to represent all the population groups and high schools in Ashkelon. Diller's representative in Israel, Liat Cohen Raviv, supervised the selection process together with Avner Maimon from the Education Dept in the Municipality.

Noa Nagar HaLevy is our Diller coordinator, for the second year running. She will be assisted by our soldier Rebecca Navon. Noa is constant contact with Leah Sherizen Berry in Baltimore, planning and coordinating the matching programs.

We are looking forward to another exciting and educational Diller program!

Nicole

Noa Nagar Halevy - Diller 2009 Ashkelon Coordinator

Sigal with Liat Cohen Raviv, who represents Diller in Israel

Rebecca Navon Noa running one of the workshops

A leadership exercise during the workshops

On 17th Dec 2008, the Youth Council held a festive event at the Teen Center, to celebrate the close of a successful year of youth activity in Ashkelon, while looking forward to 2009, to another even better year !

Mayor Benny Vaknin was there to greet the youth. Mayor Benny Vaknin told the youth that he too had been a member of the Youth Council. Avner Maimon (Head of Culture Dept), Yakov Attias (Head of Youth Dept) and of course Sigal Ariely, were also there to celebrate the occasion.

The Youth Council is composed of about 60 teens, with representatives from every school in the city. They are active in many different spheres and initiate many volunteer activities and events for the benefit of Ashkelon youth, and all the residents of Ashkelon.

The Chairman of the Youth Council - Asaf Suissa, welcomed the new Mayor on behalf of the youth. He gave a presentation showing the activities of the Council over the year, and outlining the plan of action for the 2009. Nicole

Asaf Suissa, Chairman of the Youth Council