The newly established Afula-Gilboa Teen Information and Guidance Center is in a Historical Building that housed the first Afula Municipal Government and Court House. The building resembles the Little Red Schoolhouses Built in the United States in the 1800s and seems exceptionally fitting for its purpose and as the focus of another connection of the Partnership between the Southern New England Communities and Afula-Gilboa.

On April 14, 2004 the official opening of the Center was celebrated with a dedication ceremony. The Afula-Gilboa Teen Information and Guidance Center is under the auspices of the Elem Organization for Youth at Risk. Elem is a national organization engaged in providing a wide range of services and Programs for adolescents, especially in the fields of counseling, outreach and prevention.

Elem's Flagship program is the Teen Information and Guidance Centers existing in various localities across Israel. These Centers offer teenagers a warm coffee house atmosphere with interpersonal support given with dignity and respect for the teens that come to spend time and chat with the volunteer staff. The volunteers include adults and teens among their numbers. The Centers also have a professional staff to which the youths are referred for additional counseling and guidance when necessary. The contribution that SNEC has made under the Partnership 2000 programs for 2004 covers the cost of salaries for two professional staff people.

The Afula-Gilboa Teen Information and Guidance Center is an attractive place for teens to come to talk about what bothers them. The framework offers a normative model allowing teens in distress to feel free and comfortable in visiting the Center and in speaking with its volunteer staff without being stigmatized. Opportunities exist within the framework to refer teens to more extensive intervention with professional staff. The teens come to the Center being assured of the confidentiality of their visit.

Nava Barak the President of National Elem spoke at the dedication ceremony and told the audience that the Afula-Gilboa Center is the 18th Center to open in Israel. The Elem Organization has been in existence since 1981 and some of the Teen Information and Guidance Centers have been functioning for many years and have been shown to be very successful in drawing teens to them and in serving as a base for both innovative programs in working with teens and as a nerve center to be able to sense what kinds of interventions are most helpful for the teens.

Some of the other speakers at the ceremony were Mayor of Afula Yitzhak Mirone; First Deputy Mayor of Afula, Menachem Yavor; Gilboa Deputy Mayor Ronny Lev and Eshel Fram Regional Manager of the Jewish Agency Afula-Gilboa.

Two of the volunteers at the Center are teens who participated in the summer 2003 visit to Bridgeport, Connecticut with the Group of Teen Victims of Terror from the region and continue to participate in the support group run by Rina Hadad, Director of the Afula Municipal Youth Department.

The Center is pluralistic both in terms of the teens who come to benefit from its and in terms of the teens who work as volunteers. All of the ethnic groups in Israel and levels of religious observance are represented.

The Afula-Gilboa Teen Information and Guidance Center is a cooperative venture of municipal departments in Afula-Gilboa, Governmental Offices and National NGOs. The Center is supported by a generous grant from The Jewish Community Federation of San Francisco.

All of us living in the region feel that the establishment of the Afula-Gilboa Teen Information and Guidance Center is the fulfillment of a dream. We are sure that it will contribute greatly to the improvement of the quality of life particularly for the vulnerable adolescent population, and for all of the people in the area.

  Nisan 5764 - April 2004