Thirty youths and six counselors will leave this week to attend four summer camps of Jewish youth groups in South Africa as part of the Bet Shemesh-Yehuda Plains Partnership 2000 project of the Jewish Agency.
 
The campers and counselors will represent our Region at the summer camps of Habonim Dror, Bnei Akiva, Netzer and Beitar.

The youths from the two communities will enjoy a rare opportunity to directly experience Zionism and Jewish values. This is the eighth year in which counselors from the Region are attending the camps and following last year's success it was decided to expand the number of Israeli participants this year.

In recent months, preparatory seminars were held which were attended by counselors and local shaliachs who had taken part in the South African camps in previous years. Among them were Shoshi Settet, Howard Gordon, Rinat Shefern and Ronen and Dotan Segel. Ronen Segel, a former shaliach of the HaBonim Dror movement in South Africa, took part in the preparation for the trip: "I was very impressed by the counselors going to South Africa and by their abilities. I am sure that the youth movements will benefit greatly from their participation and am convinced that they will also benefit and contribute their share."