The Forgotten People Fund

 A charity registered in Israel # 58-032-322-8

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Social Services Criticized for Failure to Help Ethiopian Olim by Ruth Eglash,

The Jerusalem Post, June 2008

 A series of failures over the years to provide adequate & culture-appropriate assistance to tens of thousands of Ethiopian immigrants has contributed to the growing poverty & distress of more than 2/3 of the 110,500 member community according to the State Comptroller’s Report issued recently. Focusing on the efforts of social services, the Immigrant Absorption Ministry and the Anti-Drugs Authority to assist the community between January & October 2007, the Report highlighted a “general failure by the authorities in treating the Ethiopian Community in the area of social welfare”.
The criticisms outlined in the Report which focused on two in-depth case studies in Netanya & Ashdod, where a significant number of Ethiopian Jews live, included a severe shortage of social workers & mounting caseloads, social workers not adequately trained to work within the cultural confines of the community, minimal communication between government bodies charged with helping this population & a general lack of knowledge about the community. The Report also pointed out the failure by the government to communicate its decisions to people working in the field. “The most troubling findings’” the comptroller wrote, “are that these problems have been known for many years. How could these state-controlled bodies not have internalized this community’s unique needs and devised a method of helping them?” The report calls on the relevant ministries “to immediately seek ways to fix the problems outlined in the report and coordinate their work by sharing their information and program ideas. “We know that the findings weren’t positive,” a spokesman for the Welfare & Social Services Ministry told Jerusalem Post, “but we are now working hard to improve the situation…and now have new ideas on how to deal with the problems.”
Since the State Comptroller’s Office completed its Report in October 2007, the cabinet has approved a first-of-its-kind 5 year plan aimed at improving life for thousands of Ethiopian families. They are, however, still waiting for final funding approval from the Finance Ministry. Ethiopian MK Shlomo Mula (Kadima) said the Report made clear the disparities between cabinet decisions and their implementation. “There needs to be a parliamentary investigation to see how policies end up falling through the cracks”, Mula said, adding that the 5 yr. plan still hadn’t been implemented proving that that “government makes promises but nothing ends up happening.”
In the cities Ashdod and Netanya, the comptroller said “domestic violence in the Ethiopian community was disproportionately high” due to a range of social and cultural challenges faced by immigrants during the absorption process. Social services charged with tackling this problem weren’t sufficiently trained to help victims of such violence. In Netanya, says the Report, there were two social of Ethiopian descent but they couldn’t deal with the overwhelming demand for services resulting in those in need of treatment having to wait a very long time to receive it.
Many older people “were only visited when family members or community leaders notifies social workers that there was a serious problem” because of insufficient numbers of social workers for follow-up care.
 
New Policy Instituted by Israeli Schools – Destructive and Discriminatory February 2006
 
A new policy has been instituted by School Administrators in Israel which we, at the Forgotten People Fund, find reprehensible. Children whose parents have not paid their school fees are being penalized by not receiving their report cards at the end of each semester and at the end of the school year. This has created a lot of grief for the parents who simply don’t have the ability to pay the fees for their children and youngsters are refusing to go to school because they are embarrassed since their friends all know that they didn’t get their report cards.
 
The fees in elementary school for all children include a charge for books, the charges for trips and cultural events during the year, and the addition of NIS 325 for a program called “Keren Karev” which is designed to provide some special programs not available during the regular class hours – e.g. computers, art, and extra science. Parents are responsible for purchasing school supplies and back packs, plus paying for transportation to and from school if the schools the children go to aren’t in their neighborhood.
 
When an Ethiopian family with four or five children has to pay 750 shekels per child in elementary school and 1,500 to 1,700 per child in high school, the burden is too great for most of them to bear since the monthly income of the average Ethiopian family is NIS 3,500 shekels. Because this expense is impossible to cope with, some decide to send their children to boarding schools where their children are sponsored by Youth Aliyah. For some youngsters this removal from the family home is acceptable; but there are others who don’t do well when they aren’t under the family’s roof and we have heard of a lot of cases of acting out and getting into serious trouble – even running away from the boarding school – so this is not necessarily the best solution for some of the youngsters.
 
As a result of this newest policy, our Forgotten People Fund has been inundated with requests from parents as well as teachers, who see the effect it is having on their children and students, for help in paying the school fees in order to avoid the resulting embarrassment. FPF has responded generously.
 
Withholding what rightfully belongs to a student – his/her report card – is a violation of the human rights of the student. This practice must be stopped and any principal or school director who continues this practice should be held accountable. This is usury in the full meaning of the word – the demand of a pound of flesh to pay for the child’s fees! It is an intolerable practice and should be stopped. But since it is the poorest and least-able-to-cope segment of the population that has been targeted, protest and condemnation aren’t forthcoming. We need advocates to speak out on their behalf!!
 
Until this policy is put to an end, FPF has to be ready to help our Ethiopian families avoid the shame their children feel because they are poor. We need all the help we can get to keep the children in school where they will receive the education they need to get ahead and stop the cycle of poverty. We all know that education is the key to better life and this is what we all want for our Ethiopian youngsters.