Today we visited the Therapeutic Garden at Barzilai Medical Center.
The Therapeutic Garden was built with an allocation from the partnership of $50,000, together with similar donations from a donor from England, and from Bituach Leumi.
The Therapeutic Garden complex includes a petting zoo, a small enclosed basketball court, a playground and a greenhouse. Children aged 6-18, who have problems, study at the Center for children and adolescents at the hospital. Apart from their therapy sessions and studies they are allowed closely supervised play time in the calming environment of the therapeutic garden.
The Center serves children from Ashkelon with various emotional and physical difficulties. There are individual treatments for them at the petting zoo and greenhouse. Shaul Vardi, the main therapist at the center is the man behind this project and thanks to the Baltimore Ashkelon Partnership, he was able to to make his dream come true.
There are corners for the children to play, rest, pet and feed the animals and grow plants, all as part of their therapy. The different elements of the center are set in a lovely garden setting. The center was officially opened with a formal ceremony 2 weeks ago. While we were there a group of children had their break. They played , rested and were very happy. We only took pictures of the facilities because of the children's privacy.
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