Boarding school principal, Lior Tobol, shakes a student’s hand after the elections

One of the main aims of the Ben Yakir educational religious youth village is the nurturing of young leadership, encouraging students to be socially involved and to prepare them to become thinking, caring, understanding and contributing citizens.

Involving an active student in the community at the village, through volunteer activities, helps him to form his own identity and to prove to himself that he is capable of assuming responsibility.

It helps to boost his self-confidence and empowers his individual skills.

It also contributes to high self esteem, good interpersonal communications, improves belief in, and access to, the importance of making a contribution to the community and advances personal achievements, both in the sort term and in the long term.

On the afternoon of Sunday 2 Shevat - January 17 2010, elections were held for the student council at the Ben Yakir religious youth village.

The elections were led by 11th and 12th grade students from the Dekel group, together with their leaders Tehila and Ro'i. The students acted in a mature manner throughout the process and also helped the younger students. The students also served on the ballot box committee, and were ushers and members of the election committee.

Each group was asked to send 4 representatives, from whom 2 were selected to represent them in the student council.

The students went through a whole week of activities and sessions based on various processes connected to the elections, such as: what is democracy? who is the right type of leader? how does the election process work? etc. The students were also asked to sign the village and school regulations at the same time.

Yossi Krothammer, the village director, congratulated and announced the names of the elected students in front of all the children at the village, and declared that they would form the parliament of the Ben Yakir religious youth village.

We look forward to this process being appropriately applied at the village, and hope that it leads to the students becoming more caring, more contributing members of the youth village, and even better community leaders…