At JDC, Supporting Children & Youth in Majdal Shams and Across Israel

The small village of Majdal Shams was devastated by a rocket attack — but JDC is there to continue lifting up its youngest generation.

By Ziva Sagiv - Area Head, Early Childhood Programs; JDC Ashalim | August 6, 2024

In the wake of the recent rocket attack in Majdal Shams, Ziva Sagiv (far right) is helping to bolster early-childhood programs in the community and across the country.

When a rocket attack devastated Majdal Shams, a small hamlet located just seven miles from the border with Lebanon, Ashalim, the JDC division for at-risk children and youth in Israel, responded immediately, based on its long-standing relationship and programs with the local community. Long before Oct. 7 and in the months since, JDC has coordinated with municipalities across Israel to ensure the country’s most vulnerable young people have what they need to thrive amidst the ongoing conflict.

In this post, Ziva Sagiv, Ashalim’s area head for early childhood programs, reflects on JDC’s work in Majdal Shams, how we’ve pivoted in the wake of the Oct. 7 attacks, and our mission to support Israel’s youngest generation at this critical time.

In her role at Ashalim, Sagiv (center) works closely with communities across Israel to support early-childhood professionals.

The rocket that struck Majdal Shams — killing 12 children and wounding another 19 people — not only caused a tragic loss of life but further traumatized already-vulnerable children and youth. 

In the midst of this destruction, we were on the ground, assessing the needs of early-childhood staff who were, in turn, working tirelessly to help children and parents. This response didn’t happen overnight: We were there that awful day, and in the days afterward, because we’ve been there for years. Because of our ongoing Reimagining Daycare program, operating in Madjal Shams and across the country before Oct. 7, we were able to respond to emergency early-childhood needs for the past 10 months, and especially following the trauma that the Majdal Shams community experienced on July 27.

Our mission is to understand both the challenges that Israeli at-risk children and youth face and how to overcome them. We believe that childhood is the most important time in a person’s life — and that our investment in children will have a positive impact on the rest of society. If we make these investments early on, we can close potential gaps, promote social mobility for children and youth, and help them contribute to a stronger Israel. 

These efforts continue JDC’s legacy serving the neediest young children and youth in Israel. In 1963, JDC developed the first-ever child development center in Israel. JDC’s pioneering work has also been replicated across continents — in 2008, we opened up a child development center in Buenos Aires based on models that we created here in Israel. 

Today, we’re carrying this legacy into the future. 

Even before Oct. 7, at-risk Israeli children and youth faced many challenges. The first challenge is that many early-childhood programs and daycares are private, and therefore unaffordable for many families. The second is that, for very young children, there simply aren’t enough resources to address developmental challenges, leaving many parents to deal with them on their own — or not at all. Thirdly, parents often mistrust early-childhood professionals, so there’s an unfortunate lack of partnership and communication.  

All of these challenges create opportunity gaps between children born to families with financial resources and those without — and these gaps only widen as the children grow up. 

That’s why we intervene as early as we can, gathering all relevant stakeholders — the municipalities, as well as Israel’s health, welfare, and education Ministries — to improve government services for young children and their families and creative innovative solutions to address new challenges. 

For example, we created a comprehensive set of education standards for all daycare centers and we train early-childhood professionals in best practices. 

In addition, we have trained a coordinator in each municipality across Israel, a designated professional who is responsible for all young children, from birth to three years of age, in their respective town.  Each coordinator manages and supervises early-childhood programs, as well as creates interventions for toddlers and their parents, involving them as partners. These coordinators are our direct link to the children and youth we serve, our eyes and ears who can assess and address their real-time needs. Today, there are more than 200 coordinators across Israel. This work is done in partnership with the Israeli Ministry of Education.

After Oct. 7 — and particularly after the rocket strike in Majdal Shams — this entire network of care and support allowed us to deliver immediate and long-term assistance to the vulnerable children and youth who need it most. We leveraged this infrastructure to meet the urgent needs of the moment, and we acted quickly. 

We believe that childhood is the most important time in a person’s life — and that our investment in children will have a positive impact on the rest of society.

As part of our response to the escalating tensions in the North, we are  distributing emergency kits — educational and activity kits, as well as ones filled with humanitarian supplies, through the local daycare centers and early childhood centers in certain municipalities. And for every municipality, we are working with the coordinators to ensure critical supplies like baby food and diapers are delivered.

Majdal Shams — a municipality just seven miles from the border with Lebanon — has presented us with unique challenges. The need there is great, with 480 children aged 3 and under, another 500 children between the ages of 3 and 6. 

The day after the attack, we received a phone call from our early-childhood coordinator in Majdal Shams. She asked us to help support her and her team.  We will soon launch a tailor-made training program for the coordinator and the staff at the early-childhood center, as well as organizing activities for parents and children and providing Arabic language materials to help cope with the stress and trauma. Our main goal is to promote resilience and provide a space where young children can express themselves and process their emotions. 

One of the biggest issues we’re seeing across Israel, but particularly places like Majdal Shams, is the prevalence of trauma: Young children are suffering. They can’t speak, so they can’t describe what they’re feeling — but that doesn’t mean they aren’t taking in the experience of war. 

Together, we are helping these children get back on track, giving them the space to process their trauma, and grow up to be successful members of Israeli society. We at JDC have the experience and capacity to work with other organizations, people on the ground, and the Government of Israel, to create interventions that help people when they need it most.

There is nothing more important than that — to be there for the people who need us. Majdal Shams is a tiny town, and it’s up to us to be there for them. JDC, time and time again, leaves no one behind. That’s what we did before Oct. 7, and that’s what we’ve done ever since. 

Ziva Sagiv is the area head for early childhood programs at Ashalim, the JDC initiative in Israel focused on at-risk children and youth.

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