Ethiopian women learn to use the computer in Sderot

Walking around Sderot we are often approached by people who address us in Russian because if you are not Moroccan then you must be Russian speaking. But among the population of about 20,000 there are also 120 Ethiopian families.

Batsheva Tamno, the director of the Atzmaut Ethiopian center, heard that I spoke English and that’s how I became involved a few months ago.

The center is situated in the neighborhood of Atar Herum which means ‘emergency site’. There are mostly semi-detached houses with little gardens on pleasant streets. Four years ago two of these houses became the Atzmaut community center for the Ethiopian families. At the top of the street is a small memorial stone for two Ethiopian children, Yuval and Dorit, who were killed by a rocket in 2005 before there were any Red Alert warnings or security rooms.

The funding for the center came from the Joint Israel via the Gvanim Association for Education and Community Involvement, an NGO that was set up by members of the Sderot Urban Kibbutz. A year ago the Joint ceased payments to the four instructors and only continued paying a salary to Batsheva. 

The center buzzes with activity and it is Batsheva who has kept the center going. She is Ethiopian herself, comes from Beersheba and is a social worker with an MA degree. She helped set up the center which serves the entire community: children, parents and grandparents. Following the budget cuts, Batsheva has nevertheless managed to keep going with minimum resources. Gvanim has helped a great deal, paying the rent and some other expenses.

Today the activities include a computer room for children run by a young Ethiopian from the neighborhood. It is a security room built by donors from the San Francisco Federation, a donor from Philadelphia and the Havetzelet Foundation of the kibbutz movement. The computers were donated by Michael Eitan, a Knesset member who initiated theSderot Shelanu fund. There is a story reading group for schoolchildren set up by a volunteer who moved to Sderot during the rocket attacks and there is a language enrichment group for preschoolers run by a professional kindergarten teacher. At least one mother takes part in each activity. There is a volunteer from Sherut Leumi and a student who received a grant. The other day I saw a psychologist talking to the mothers of the children in the storytelling and enrichment groups about dealing with problems and trauma. She is from the preschool program of Gvanim.

On Tu B’shvat volunteers from Elbit Sderot helped the children plant trees outside the clubroom for the elderly. Elbit volunteers have been involved for three years in coaching individual primary school pupils and organizing activities for the festivals and holidays.

Recently the Dankner Fund began funding an education project for junior high school students from the Ethiopian community at the center. A Chanukah lighting ceremony was held here in Sderot to thank the Dankner family for all they have done and are still doing for Sderot. Recipients from various groups which have received help, a student from Sderot who had received scholarships for her studies at Sapir College and a blind girl from the center for the disabled where she works, spoke movingly of the help they had received. Batsheva spoke most eloquently in the name of the Ethiopian community.

To cope with the need for organized funding, Batsheva has set up a steering committee with all the involved bodies, volunteers and others.

What has impressed me is Batsheva's sensitivity to the needs of the Ethiopian

community as a whole:  helping the local neighborhood committee, trying to organize the Center for the elderly and her human touch with the individual. She approached ESRA’s welfare fund to help a talented young fellow with art materials and asked me to coach English to a single mother who is a student of education at Sapir.

And thus has she succeeded in meeting some of the needs of the community.