Pleasure to meet you

CEO's statement

Greetings

It is my pleasure to welcome you to our website. I am pleased to inform you that our system is one of the leading systems in the field. It serves as an example and learning opportunity for professionals from Israel and abroad.

“Ahava” has created an extensive, in-depth professional infrastructure that has proven effective in bringing positive results for our children over its hundred-year history.

We welcome you to browse our website, and even arrange a meeting with us for an explanation of our unique work for children, youth, and young people at risk without a family background.

You can also support our activities by donating, according to the donation options published on the website.

Thank you for your interest

Danny Ariel

CEO, ‘’Ahavah’’ Children & Youth Village

Our story began on 1922 in Berlin

In 1914, a number of Zionist women decided to establish a Soup Kitchen for Jewish children in need of care in the city of Berlin, which later on served as a shelter for Jewish children. In 1922, the shelter changed its purpose and became a residential care center for children under the name “Ahavah Home”. Beata Berger, a nurse by profession, was chosen to manage the place.

With Hitler’s rise to power in 1933, Beata Berger realized that she must take steps for Ahavah’s children. She immigrated to Israel and bought the land on which Ahavah Children & Youth Village was established in Israel. Beata managed to save 300 children and family members whose relatives perished in the Holocaust.

In 1960 the village changed its purpose once again, and became a therapeutic residential care center for at-risk children who were removed from their homes due to severe socioeconomic situations or various welfare cases.

In 1991, under the management of Ofra Meirson, the working system changed into a model of Family Home Care Units, in which married couples move in with their own children into the residential home-care units and serve as a model of a normal family for children and teenagers at risk.

In the 2000s, the trend of expansion continued in the village, day-care family units were established and an 18+ program which includes four warm homes for graduates of out-of-home placements and young adults without family support.

In 2008, the organization won a tender to operate an emergency center for children at risk from the northern region.

Ahavah Nowadays

Throughout its years of activity, “Ahavah” organization continues to operate with the goal of providing children and youth at risk with an environment that fulfils all of their physical, emotional, educational, and social needs in order to allow each and every one to realize their personal potential to the best of their ability, through several frameworks:

Therapeutic-educational residential home care units for at-risk children: a residential care center that operates on the basis of a ”family home care unit” model, developed in the village, in which married couples move in to the home care units and serve as a parental model for 13 children and teenagers at risk. The parents serve as a model of managing a normal family life for the children.
Therapeutic day-care units: a residential day-care center that operates 7:00-19:00 and serves 30 children aged 6-14 who receive all services and return to their homes in the evenings.
Post-hospitalization program: a hospitalization alternative for children and teenagers, who stay in the home care units and need comprehensive care.
Education: ”Ahava” special education school for 120 children in grades 1^st-9^th. Each class has 6 children, a teacher and an assistant. Starting from the 10^th and up to 12^th grade, the children go out to 23 different external schools in the community, according to the personal potential of each one of them.
Northern emergency center: An emergency input unit which provides short-term diagnosis and treatment before moving the children to out-of-home placements. The center hosts children aged 6-14 who are taken out of their homes in emergent crisis situations and also serves as a therapeutic-advisory unit for 50 families in the nearby community, in order to prevent the removal of children from their homes.
18+ Residential Facility: Warm homes for young adults aged 18-25 who have no family support and are committed to study, work or serve the IDF or National Service Program. The young adults are guided by a professional team who assist them with integrating into society as normative citizens.