by Mor Nadler, Director of the College for All Center in Arad

For the past four years the College for All has been running a center in Arad, which aims to help children to realize their abilities and even to achieve excellence. The College for All Association is operating 25 centers in cities and towns, working to reduce social disparities, and helping children from the geographic and social periphery of Israel, by way of a high level comprehensive multidisciplinary educational program. The program includes reinforcement and expansion upon the core subjects studied at school, personal empowerment, social involvement and generally broadening horizons in as many ways as possible.

Last year, 70 children in the third to eighth grades, participated in the activities in the Arad center, supported by the Jewish Agency through the Partnership, the Arad municipality and other entities. In addition to the studies, the children enjoyed enrichment classes such as dance, nature and environment, drama, drawing, astronomy, football in cooperation with the Hapoel Tel Aviv football school, and debating with the debating league from Ben Gurion University.

Just before the end of the year, a highlight day of the Association took place in Tel Aviv with the participation of College for All students from all over the country. To wrap up the mathematics lessons in which the children learned about geometry, ratios, how to read a map and more, a competition was held for planning and building a palace. The students from the Arad Center won 2nd place in the competition and 3rd place in the map reading competition. Well done!

Participation in the program instills real hope for change in education and gives the children in the program equal opportunities to succeed, excel in their studies, get a good education, integrate into society and to develop as contributing citizens and future leaders of Israeli society.