"Giving them a voice and receiving a world": The national service girls accompanying people with special needs

Twenty national service girls from the Volunteering Association began their service this week at the "ALYN - Beit Noam" organization, which provides a warm home, support, and rehabilitation for adults with special needs. The true power of the place is revealed in three 19-year-old volunteers — Shani Shayu, Kena Freund, and Tehila Disin — who chose not to settle for one intensive year and are now continuing for a second year of exciting activity and mission at the place.

Small things that make a big difference

Shani Shayu from Netanya looks at the residents with a smile and talks about the deep connection formed with them, which is sometimes expressed precisely in the smallest and most daily things, such as feeding them, giving them something to drink, or simply sitting and talking with them. For Shani, the great meaning is to give them their own voice so that someone will truly listen to them. From the challenging national service, she takes with her into life primarily the joy of the trainees, who despite all their difficulties always find a way to see the light and the joy.

Serving alongside her is Kena Freund from Rosh Tzurim, for whom every moment in the presence of the trainees is a full world, starting from a small smile, through simple communication, to a look that is not taken for granted. Kena shares a moving moment that is hard to explain in words, in which a trainee with only basic communication ability managed to press a special communication device and establish contact with her. She describes that there are not many other places with such a level of significance in the national service, as it is a place where the people depend on the volunteers and the volunteers depend on them, and she promises the girls who will arrive in the future that they will receive from the place much more than they will give to it.

Changing perspective

Also for Tehila Disin from Kochav HaShachar, "Beit Noam" is an experience that completely changes the perspective on life. She describes a special atmosphere and a significant role in which the happy and smiling trainees simply enter directly into the heart.

The complex work requires the volunteers to have great strength of spirit, infinite sensitivity, a wide heart, and physical and mental resilience, and therefore they receive a warm emotional envelope and close accompaniment from a coordinator on behalf of the Volunteering Association, who helps them take care of themselves and be filled so that they can continue and give of themselves.

The CEO of the Volunteering Association, Yaron Lutz, who met the girls this week, said with excitement:

"These wonderful volunteers, who choose every day to stand at the forefront of the most complex work like in "Beit Noam", give the country the thing it needs most in these days — true national resilience."

According to him, the girls' service builds the value backbone of the State of Israel, proves that mutual responsibility is our true power, and shows that there is no greater hope for the young generation."