Stories and Pathways

  It goes without saying that an Israeli summer is unlike most summers you may have experienced in your lifetime. The heat of the Middle East is truly unavoidable as it begins to cast its shadow at the early hour of 8 am. You may ask, how can one avoid this? The answer is simple. One must arise just before the sun rises, and be out on the road at 6 am, at the latest. As ENP's volunteers and staff ventured out from Jerusalem to Afula yesterday morning, this was exactly the case.We were extremely excited to be a part of a traditional Ethiopian cooking demonstration, put together for a group of women visiting from Rhode Island. As large fans of Ethiopian food, we had no problem taking part in the eating of the fresh ingera and wat, far before noon. As the group piled into the Afula youth outreach center, the stove tops were switched on and the room began to fill with the smells of the traditional spices. The heat of the room and aroma of the food created the atmosphere of an "a...

Justine again! Now having finished my second session with Efrat. I honestly find her fascinating. For someone who has been through such hardships as her parents passing at a young age to moving here, leaving everything behind at home to move to a new country, and now learning a new language, she is a very wise and positive woman. Yesterday I came across an article about some of the Ethiopian protests around Israel. The articles I read touched on the police brutality and racism protests towards the Ethiopian communities around the country. I asked her about what she thought of the issue. She personally said she sees racism all around her. She believes the Ethiopian community to be a very emotional and prideful community. They are very intense and real about their culture and their customs. She feels the people who left Ethiopia to come (not the israel-born ethiopian youth) have a guilt attached to them from leaving their home and everything behind for a new place. She feels it gives ...

There are two experiences that bookend my interning in Ramla each time we go— the trip there from Tel Aviv and the trip back. While these bus rides might seem to lack substance worthy of a blog post, the respective experiences of travelling to and from work are so indicative of the experiences we have at the ENP youth center in Ramla I felt it was well worth sharing. It is 2:30 PM, we (my co-intern Haley and myself) meet on Alenby to catch a bus to our first destination: the Central Bus Station. We are a little tired, a bit reluctant, and honestly looking forward to around 9:30 pm when we will be back in this exact spot, especially considering the CBS is not the kind of place you want to be at night. We then take one bus to another. We dread this second bus. It stops. And starts. So. Many. Times. But eventually, in what consistently takes twice as long as it should, we make it to Ramla. Our walk from the bus stop to the center leads us through a neighborhood full of life. Kids on ...

            On July 5 th I finally got my chance to go out into the field and interact with some of the community members in Ashkelon. The day started out normally I got into work at 10:00 and at 12:30 we started to head off on our way. The ride itself was about 1 hour and 20 minutes, we also had to pick up an intern from the train station on our way there.                     When we finally got to our community center we saw that the gate was still locked, which meant we could not get it. All though this was a bit stressful since we were already running a bit late, we were able to have a quick tour of Ashkelon and learn a little about the community. After our 5-10 minutes tour we were told that the gate was open and we could come in. We then started to set up for our program for the day               Now before I get into what we were...

            On the morning of June 30, 2016, the volunteers at the Ethiopian National Project were privileged to hear from ENP’s executive director Roni Akale. He modestly opened by explaining that his English wasn’t stellar, however his ability to communicate with us was extremely coherent and enjoyable. Roni has a warm soul and it’s very clear that the lessons he's extracted from his life are worn on his sleeve.              Roni was born in a small village in Ethiopia that he described as "far from town". His village was primitive and lacked essential utilities such as electricity. He completed both elementary school and high school in Ethiopia and went on to work in the ministry of agriculture as a book keeper for 2 years. Interestingly enough, In 1928, it was Roni’s uncle who had built the first school in Ethiopia, which originated as a small shelter built of roots and the like, created to...