The Shema Beni Educational Counselling Center will begin
operating a English language hotline. The hotline will
operate three times a week during evening hours, and will
provide counselling on educational issues. The educators
manning the hotline are specially trained in the unique needs
of English-speakers.
The Center continues to work with those who call the hotline
until their issues are completely resolved. Other volunteers
who are trained to deal with educational and family issues
are frequently called upon by the hotline to help.
The highly successful hotline in Hebrew has assembled a first-
class group of chareidi education professionals who are
expert in dealing with educational issues. Parents,
melamdim, roshei yeshivos, mashgichim,
educational staff, and organizations involved in
preventing youth from dropping out of school have all taken
advantage of the Center's hotline.
An initial advertisement asking for avreichim to
volunteer for Shema Beni's national mentor database had an
impressive response.
The Center is now publicizing a call for additional
avreichim to join its mentors project. After a
personal interview, those who qualify are trained how to help
yeshiva students succeed in their studies and how to
personally guide them.
The Center's rabbis who will address the first group of
avreichim include HaRav Moshe Goldstein, rosh yeshiva
of Yeshivas Shaarei Yosher and the founder of the Center;
HaRav Nechemia Nordheim, the mashgiach of Yeshivas Chochmas
Shlomo, and other experts with years of experience in
counselling and education who were approved by gedolei
Yisroel.
Rav Yitzchok Brenner, the coordinator of the Mentors Program,
said that the Center plans to set up a large national
database of mentors so it can reach as large a number of
students as possible. "We ask additional avreichim who
think they have the talent to work with yeshiva youths to
join the ranks of mentors."
In a related development, the Shema Beni Educational
Counselling Center will soon open a third Midrasha in Ashdod.
The directors of the two evening Midrashas in Jerusalem were
asked by educators in Ashdod to open a Midrasha in their
city. The Midrasha will be based on a program similar to the
two Midrashas in Jerusalem: joint study with youths,
lectures, classes, discussion groups and social activities
based on Shema Beni's unique approach.
