Keren Ofek
AMEN Youth Volunteer, Ramat-HaSharon
Meet Keren and learn about her role as an AMEN Youth Volunteer.
At 17, Keren has already had an impressive and diverse volunteering career. Through AMEN, a JDC program designed to nurture volunteerism and leadership among Israel’s young generation, Keren began volunteering at age 13 at AKIM, an organization for children with disabilities. In this context, she arranged special holiday activities and operated a summer camp. In parallel, she built a website for the local AMEN chapter and taught experiential, reinforcement math classes to children.
Keren is an active member of the municipal youth council of Ramat HaSharon and of her school’s student council. She also attended training workshops for junior tour guides, developing skills of which her school happily took advantage, sending her on younger grades’ field trips. Keren was recognized with the Child of the Year Award by the Children’s TV Channel for her efforts.
Keren further diversified her volunteering areas by participating in AMEN’s introductory Medical Clowns course. In this capacity, she spent many hours at both a shelter for battered women and children and at the Meir Medical Center, deriving deep satisfaction from the feeling that she was brightening others’ lives.
During the 2006 Lebanon War, Keren wholeheartedly joined multiple efforts of assistance. She collected food products donated by shoppers for soldiers in the north; recruited local families to host northern "refugee" families (her own family hosted a family of nine, whom they didn’t know, for nearly a month); and participated in packing thousands of activity kits to be sent to children confined to bomb shelters in the North. And as soon as the war ended Keren headed north to help some more.
Together with friends, Keren cleaned and painted a run down bomb shelter in Haifa’s Kiryat Haim neighborhood, where they were spontaneously greeted by local residents who thanked them with ice cream. The unbearable stuffiness of the shelter made the youth appreciate the hardship endured by its wartime dwellers threefold. Next, Keren participated in a similar renovation in Karmiel, this time with her teachers. Finally, she operated a stand at a special event for summer camp children in Nazareth Illith including clownery, makeup, and crafts.
Keren’s volunteering efforts to alleviate the suffering caused by the war were part of her overall commitment to caring for others and civic involvement. "The northern experience was unique," she says of the war-related volunteering, "it gave me a sense of belonging to my country and of identification with our citizens in need".
