HU Project Aids Immigrant Women, Children from Caucasus

HU Project Aids Immigrant Women, Children from Caucasus

PNIMA – a project for immigrant women and children from the Caucasus initiated by the Research Institute for Innovation and Education at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem – is currently celebrating the completion of its seventh year of activity in Israel. The project is aimed at assisting the participants in their integration into Israeli society.

An end of the year celebration will be held on Friday, June 26, at 9:30 a.m. at the Caesarea National Park. Some 150 people, most of them single family mothers and their children, will participate. For most of them this will be their first visit to an archaeological site in general and to the historic Caesarea port in particular.

Immigrants from the Caucasus have had a particularly difficult time in adjusting to life in Israel, said Dr. Shalva Weil of the Research Institute for Innovation in Education at the Hebrew University. Due to a low-aspiration self-image they tend to send their children to work at a very young age instead of continuing their education, resulting not only in a low educational level but also a low level of their enlistment in the Israel Defense Forces due to inadequate background.

In order to cope with this situation, the PNIMA project offers a variety of workshops, discussion groups, lectures, meetings with psychologists and other professionals, and educational and cultural trips in order to create greater female self-assurance and to promote better integration and progress in Israeli society for both the women and their children. The project also helps in resolving various problems and issues that arise in the daily lives of the participants.  

Thus far, the program has seen important changes in people’s lives due to the project. These include consistent attendance, teenagers, even with criminal record, who are happy to participate, youth asking about enlisting in the IDF, and first-time visits to museums, to the theater and to Jerusalem.

The program is supported by the Tamra F. Gould and Howard Amster II Philanthropic Fund of the Jewish Community Federation of Cleveland.