AMIT Kfar Blatt is a youth village with several different elements: residences, a junior high school, a senior high school, a community center and a pre-military professional training junior college. Each plays a key role in the lives of the young people who call Kfar Blatt their home.
There are 12 residences (called mishpachtonim, from the Hebrew word for “family”), each of which houses 16 to 18 girls or boys, along with a young couple and their own biological children. Here the children eat meals, prepare for school, do homework and chores, spend down time and sleep. The residences contain bedrooms, a dining room and living room, kitchen and small apartment for the surrogate parents. Six “external mishpachtonim” serve those children who come to the village for all their daytime activities—eating, studying, doing homework, socializing—and go home at night to their families.
The junior high school at Kfar Blatt has grades 7 and 8, and serves children who live in the city of Petach Tikva. The high school is larger, with both external students and the children who live at Kfar Blatt (most arriving from the AMIT Beit Hayeled in Jerusalem, which goes through 8th grade). In both schools, there is an emphasis on academic excellence and helping the children fulfill their potential through a range of educational, therapeutic and social activities.
The high school gives students the option of doing a full bagrut or earning a technology/vocational diploma in life sciences and agriculture, auto mechanics, administration or industrial management. Despite coming from very difficult family backgrounds, last year 61% of the students successfully passed the full matriculation exams. This impressive achievement is due to the students’ and teachers’ hard work, as well as the motivation and support the children receive from the mishpachtonim and the Kfar Blatt staff. Over 95% of Kfar Blatt graduates go on to serve in the IDF or national service, which is a crucial step toward securing employment upon entering the job market.
The community center offers a range of afternoon and evening extracurricular activities for the students, and aims to help each child find an activity that s/he enjoys and excels at, to build self-confidence and a feeling of accomplishment. The activities also serve to keep the children busy and off the streets. Kfar Blatt’s Makimi Treatment Center counsels students battling substance abuse, and offers a range of workshops to give students the tools they need to develop coping and interpersonal communication skills.
