Goal To create a comprehensive nationwide platform to train, guide and support young pre-Army volunteers working in Israel's periphery with under-achieving and at-risk children.

Overview In 2005, the Isracorps Training and Guidance Center for Volunteers in the Periphery was established through a partnership of Sacta-Rashi Foundation, Israel Venture Network and Galileo Foundation with the aim of improving the operation of young volunteers who come to work in peripheral localities for a year before they are drafted in the army. Around 2,000 Israeli youth are involved in such volunteer work, chosen and sent by various emissary agencies: youth movements, the Society for the Protection of Nature, pre-army programs, kibbutz youth program, etc. These agencies are in charge of placing the volunteers and preparing them for specific work; yet, they fail to prepare the volunteers for their encounter with the periphery and to provide appropriate training for working within the local education system. Similarly, thousands of Jewish youth from abroad spend time in Israel each year as tourists, kibbutz workers, or students. Often, they have no opportunity to work with, or even meet, Israelis of their own age, nor do they encounter Israel's real social issues.

IsraCorps absorbs groups of Israeli youth from the emissary agencies and Jewish youth from abroad and trains them to take up positions in formal and informal educational settings, with an emphasis on helping them impart values of good citizenship, Jewish identity and social leadership. After training, the volunteers are placed in accordance with the needs of local authorities, focusing on the Tafnit program (where they act as classroom tutors) during the morning hours, and leaders of youth movements and informal education programs in the afternoons. In this its first year, IsraCorps has trained and placed 17 groups in 12 localities in the north, and 6 groups in 5 localities in the south – a total of 194 volunteers, including 30 Young Judea volunteers working in Tiberias, and groups of Druze and Bedouin youth.

Sacta-Rashi's Involvement Founding partner and developer of the program

Partners Israel Venture Network Galileo Foundation Jewish communities in North America