A National Youth Leadership Center
The Yemin Orde Initiatives aims to establish the Yemin Orde National Youth Leadership Center for at-risk and immigrant youth to be based in the Galilee town of Hatzor. The proposed Leadership Center would not only be an institute for empowering immigrant and at-risk youth from around the country, but would also provide much needed community services to residents of Hatzor and its environs.
The Center will operate year round offering day-seminars, workshops, specialized sessions and year-round programs to develop the leadership potential of youth and young adults ages 16 – 25 from around the country.
The Center will also house the acclaimed Yemin Orde Mechina Pre-Military Leadership Program. The Mechina is a national program to prepare immigrant youth for leadership positions in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and, as a result, to become leaders in their communities and Israeli society generally. Virtually all of the participants in Yemin Orde’s Mechina program are new immigrants or are from families of immigrants who have faced difficulties in absorbing and assimilating into a new culture and society.
This important new program will help address the immediate needs of the recovery efforts of the north while also providing an anchor for longer-term efforts to revitalize the town of Hatzor.
Based on the success of the Yemin Orde Mechina, Yemin Orde Initiatives aspires to establish a parallel program for women, promoting the leadership abilities of young immigrant women who lack the tools to materialize their potential. This program will be located elsewhere in the Galilee region but participants would use the Leadership Center’s facilities extensively.