This July, a group of Year 12 students from the UK, flew to World ORT Kadima Mada’s Kfar Silver Youth Village, to take part in the first ever ORT JUMP Israel Challenge, one of ORT UK’s brand new ORT JUMP Employability Skills Programmes.
Our students joined peers from Israel, Brazil, Ukraine and the USA, to take on the ‘Apprentice-style’ experience, designed in collaboration with Magen David Adom UK (MDA UK).
The programme had kicked off earlier in the week in the UK, with an introduction summit, during which the UK participants began creating the ORT UK Campaign film 2023. As the stars of the film, they’d be documenting their experience through a range of activities to develop entrepreneurship, reasoning, critical thinking, storytelling, design thinking and much more.
International participants then joined via zoom where they met with guest speakers Daniel Burger and Joshua Diamond from Magen David Adom UK, Yoni Cohen from JAAQ and Cassy Martell and George Sanders from AzuraMinds.
The group spent a week at Kfar Silver, ORT’s flagship youth village that makes an impact through education, by providing first-class practical educational experiences through leading innovative teaching methods.
Over the course of the week, students worked in teams to develop a concept that would help MDA’s thousands of teenage ambulance volunteers, supporting them with their mental health and challenges that arise because of their role – a provision currently not in place.
The group attended design thinking workshops and practical experience sessions, gaining entrepreneurial tips from leading tech organisations including Appleseeds and Tel Aviv University Ventures Capital. They also had a presentation consultancy session from ORT UK Chair Annette Kurer, and clinician feedback sessions from AzuraMinds.
In addition, they were able to conduct vital market research with teenage volunteers at the MDA Bloomberg centre, who assisted the participants in the development of their projects and ideas.
At the end of the week, the five teams pitched their concepts to MDA UK. The presentations were impressive, as each offered solutions to streamline existing services and offerings. This included creating fully equipped and usable spaces for volunteers and staff through a holistic approach, upgraded apps to support well-being of volunteers and their families, therapeutic support through art, animals and music and a mentoring programme with ex volunteers.
Following the teams’ pitches, ORT UK Chair, Annette Kurer said:
“I am overwhelmed and incredibly proud of the students’ commitment, passion and teamwork demonstrated during their final presentations. The students embraced every opportunity to learn to work collaboratively in their teams, network & build connections and present innovative practical solutions for MDA which will start being implemented immediately. I will make sure that our collaboration with MDA delivers these well-being programmes and that the volunteers’ mental well-being is significantly improved as a result so that they are happier, more relaxed and fulfilled in their roles.”
While ORT UK CEO, Dan Rickman commented:
“ORT UK strives to make an impact through education and these young people not only had an unforgettable experience, they also gained skills and insight that will serve them into their future careers. Working in teams they all came up with superb proposals for MDA UK to consider, to improve the wellbeing offered to their teenage volunteers. What our students from across the globe achieved in a week was simply phenomenal. We couldn’t have done any of this without the guidance of our parent organisation World ORT and the wonderful staff team in Kadima Mada and we are so grateful to the Wohl Foundation for believing in us and funding our pilot programmes.”
