Ashalim: Services for Children and Youth at Risk
JDC-ESHEL: Services for the Elderly
VPL-ELKA
Immigrant Integration
TEVET: Employment & Entrepreneurship
Responding to Crisis
Israel Research Institutes

Israelis with Disabilities

Need
Israel is home to an estimated 700,000 adults living with some form of physical, sensory, cognitive, or mental disability, or suffering from a chronic illness that limits their daily functioning. These individuals and their families are in need of additional social support and better access to basic services. Most have the potential to live with greater independence or be self-sufficient.

Response
JDC’s Unit for Disabilities and Rehabilitation and Israel Unlimited—a strategic partnership among JDC, the Government of Israel, and the Ruderman Family Foundation—work in collaboration with community and government partners to enable Israelis with disabilities to live independently in their communities and with their families rather than in institutions. They work in tandem with NGOs—run by the disabled for the disabled—that integrate people with disabilities into political, social, economic, and cultural life, allowing them to live rich, fulfilled, and independent lives. JDC’s work includes:

• Support services for daily needs and emergencies
• Peer counseling and advocacy information
• Caregiver training to support and strengthen families

Impact

• 20 Supportive Communities for the Disabled provide day-to-day, at-home assistance to more than 1,500 individuals and 4,000 family members, among them 700 children under age 18, so they can continue to live independently in their homes
• Some 700 activists and 4,000 other people with disabilities participated in various programs and training efforts, through the Accessible Community Initiative, designed to help them achieve greater involvement in their communities and in decisions that shape their own lives
• More than 3,000 people with disabilities received peer counseling, advocacy, and support services from disabled professionals and volunteers through three Centers for Independent Living, with four more centers in the planning stage.