* published in the Denemark Jewish Community newspaper

Lone Niemann - a board member of Keren Hayesod Denemark serves as a volunteer in the Ben Yakir Youth Village. Lone has been connected to the project Ben Yakir as an English teacher, and as such she has spent the last 6 months in Israel, were she currently informs us about her many experiences from her stay.

I've now been in Ben Yakir for a month, and I already feel at home and as a member of the family. The adults are incredibly sweet and very compitent, both as leaders, teachers and educators. And the children are very well stimulated. Among other things, I am very impressed by our animal therapyst, Gabi; he is a leader of the animal farm, in which the kids are riding horses on a daily basis. We also have goats, sheep, donkeys, peackoks and camels. The children learn how to take care of them and they feed them several times a day.

Of course I am also very impressed by the employees - Yossi, who is the leader of the village and Rabbi Gutman who is the leader of the school - and both of their secretarys. These secretaries are very compitent and very good at their jobs.

There are a lot of things happening here. It's a beautiful place and it has incredible beautiful view over a valley and many green flowers and trees.

In the beginning I wondered where the children were rushing to after school. Now I know that they have a lot of activities and courses after school hours. Like for instance - singing lessons, ceramic classes, special keyboards and drum lessons. They have a big working place for carpentery and they create impressive things from wood. Twice a week they drive to Hadera for science lessons. When I walk through the village and hear music here and there, see children riding horses and watch what is coming out of the ovens of the ceramic classes, it gives me an incredible good impression of what is done for these children. Of course, they also have a sports coatch and play both soccer and basketball.

When I suggest myself as a volunteer teacher in English, I had no idea about how eager these children were to learn languages.  They actually stand in line to study, very motivated, and I now have four full days a week. Some of my students are so interested in learning more that they are asking for extra lessons.

In short about myself - in January I visited Ben Yakir as a board member of KH. I fell in love with the place, and as they were interested in an English teacher which is my profession, I decided to come. I have been living in Ben Yakir for 6 months. I record my experiences from this fantastic KH funded project.