Enabling children and youth living with any type of motor, cognitive or sensory disability, as well as their able-bodied peers, to take part in enjoyable social activities led by young leaders from the Bedouin community by establishing a youth movement in the Bedouin village Lakiya.
Strategic Philanthropy Project of the Menomadin Foundation: the Lakiya Branch of Krembo Wings movement, enjoyable social activities for disabled children.
The Challenge
The proportion of children with special needs within the Bedouin community is larger than their share in the wider Israeli society, and response towards them may often reflect shame, concealment and exclusion from the public sphere. The local public systems in the Bedouin community are dealing with a budgetary shortage that is reflected in a lack of services for children and youth with special needs, and most of them do not have an after-school care arrangement.
The Opportunity
The Menomadin Foundation has initiated the establishment and is an active supporter of the Krembo Wings branch in Lakiya, a village lacking proper arrangements for children and youth with special needs. The activities in the Lakiya branch will be led by participants and graduates of the “Star Accelerator” program, with which the foundation has been involved for several years, and will include personal mentorship in a mixed-group setting, along with able-bodied children and youth, thus encouraging join interactions that raise awareness to the social accessibility needed to address the emotional and social needs of individuals with disabilities and support their integration into Bedouin and Israeli society. The Krembo Wings activities, along with the “Star Accelerator” program, are expected to contribute to changing the Bedouin society’s perception of individuals with special needs, and increase the exposure of the community’s next generation of leadership to special needs populations.
