Projects with the Community
Sulamot – Music for Social Change Amongst Children
The Sulamot program was initiated by the Israeli Philharmonic Orchestra in conjunction with Tel Aviv University with the goal of helping children through music and by playing with the orchestra. Sulamot is first and foremost a program offered to children whose parents cannot afford high-quality enrichment programs, and it aims to expose children to the benefits found in music and in playing music. The learning process at Sulamot is based on the experience of playing in a group as well as in cooperation. Instruction is by way of small groups, enabling personal attention for every child, who also participate by playing in the orchestra and giving other performances in the community.
ICL contributed to conducting this project in the Bedouin village of Hura for the benefit of the children.
Extracurricular Activities for the Bedouin Sector
Extracurricular activities are provided for Bedouin children led by students from their communities through the Perach tuition program at local primary schools. As part of this activity, every Friday about 500 Arabic-speaking students meet with approx. 1,000 students from 12 Bedouin schools in southern Israel, including in Rahat, Lakiya, Segev Shalom, Neve Midbar, Kseifa, Tel Sheva and Hura.
The Perach tutors arrive at primary schools on Fridays, when no regular studies are held. Each tutor works with two to three children, who are given two hours of individual assistance and educational enrichment, while two additional hours are dedicated to group sports activities, in collaboration with the Education and Society association. The activities focus on expanding the pupils’ world in varied subjects, such as science and sustainability, as well as other topics that are vital to Bedouin society in the South, such as road safety and safety in daily life, as part of ICL’s main project for promotion of safety practices in the Bedouin community in the South.
Accelerator for Social Enterprises
ICL strives to advance startups that harness technologies to improve the society in which we live, or to solve an endemic problem in the community. The Company supports a social project involving graduates of the IDF’s 8200 Computer Unit, which provides assistance to technological enterprises throughout Israel that adopt a social-technological idea in its initial stages and provide information, tools and funding to transform the idea into an influential and successful social project.
The 8200 Impact program
The 8200 Impact program is Israel’s first accelerator program for early stage social-technological projects. The program was founded in 2013, will complete its fifth round in July 2019 and plans to open registration for its sixth round.
The program applies to all social-technological entrepreneurs, not only to 8200 graduates. It harnesses 8200’s human capital in order to aid in the advancement of the social goals underlying the projects participating in the program.
Over the course of 5 intensive months, which include lectures, mentoring, consulting sessions and contact with investors and with the exclusive network of 8200 graduates, the program promotes projects that provide technological solutions to social problems in various areas: persons with disabilities, the elderly, gender equality, education, environment and more.
The program operates as a nonprofit organization, and therefore requires no payment in equity or intellectual property from its participating entrepreneurs, and is funded by nine leading partners, including ICL.
Projects participating in the program have raised over $40 million, continuously win important international awards and competitions, employ workers in Israel and abroad, reap positive and wide media coverage and, above all, act vigorously to assist persons in need, making our world better.
Similar to its successful operation in Tel Aviv, and in collaboration with ICL, a plan was formed to establish a branch of the program in Southern Israel, in order to provide tools to promote entrepreneurship also to residents of the South. The program will focus on earlier stage projects, in a desire to develop the South and assist its residents in initiating projects.
Ma’avarim – ICL’s Mentoring Project
Ma’avarim (“transitions”) is a community organization promoting career development in the rural sector (Kibbutzim and Moshavim) in the northern Negev, which aims to provide the residents with assistance in the fields of employment and livelihood. In the last three years (since 2017), it is also the framework for ICL’s mentoring project.
The project caters to business-owners residing in rural settlements in the Bnei Shimon and Sha’ar HaNegev regional councils and to business located therein, offering them personal business mentoring for a period of six months, provided by mentors who are senior managers at ICL.
The participation of ICL and its employees in this program is voluntary under the framework of community involvement.
Read more about volunteering by ICL Employees, and about vacation-time Employment of ICL employees’ children in community ventures.
