Community week - meeting people, finding inclusion

Contributed by Sophia Felson

HELLO FROM ISRAEL!! It's day 2 of community week and the Dillers are having a blast! We started off the day in Kiryat Shmonah where we went to a special needs school called Renanim. At the school they have a cafe where the students of the school can work. 

The cafe was beautiful and the cake was delicious. It was amazing that a group of special needs teens could make us feel so welcomed into their school. In the cafe, we talked with other students from the school where we asked them questions about their hobbies and plans for the future. 

Yahel models the delicious cake from the cafe

Phil enjoys the "throne". So much. 

We then went to a "hostel" (assisted living facility) for adults with special needs. We toured the hostel and it was so cool to see how many adults with special needs could really be integrated into society by being given their own apartments, taught how to use public transit and even given help to find jobs. We then drove to Rehaniya where we toured the Circassian museum. There, we talked about integration of the Circassians and their role in Israeli society. We then went to Shauki's house, the man who gave us the tour, to make a traditional Circassian dish called "halivas". Lastly, we ended the day with an evening circle and debrief about our day.    

Cannot wait to see what the next days have in store!