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As part of our funding projects, we have encountered the particular situation of families who have immigrated to Israel from Ethiopia on several occasions. Naor, Elisabeth, Avishag, Eden and Aschalaw, all current or former scholarship holders of our foundation, have their roots in Ethiopia. Their parents immigrated to Israel from Ethiopia. Ethiopian Jews began immigrating to Israel in the late 1970s. Immigration increased in the 1990s and continues to this day. The Ethiopian community in Israel is among the poorest in the country, and integration into society remains a major challenge.
Good school-leaving qualifications are a prerequisite for undertaking a degree in a sought-after field of study and thus making the transition to better-paid careers. The Jerusalem City Council therefore developed a programme called ‘Infinity’ to provide Ethiopian pupils and their families with a foundation for success. The programme supported gifted young people through the lower secondary years at selected secondary schools. The aim of the Jerusalem Foundation https://jerusalemfoundation.org and the Jerusalem City Council was to offer secondary school pupils scholarships, tuition, support programmes and personalised assistance tailored to their individual needs, enabling them to achieve the academic standards required for upper secondary school and preparing them optimally for working life.
In collaboration with the Jerusalem Foundation, we supported a support class comprising approximately 15 to 202 pupils over a total of five years, providing €20,000 annually to help them achieve their goal of successfully completing their school-leaving qualifications. Now, at the end of the 2025/2026 school year, 12 of the supported pupils have achieved their goal of obtaining the ‘Bagrut’ – the Israeli school-leaving qualification equivalent to the Abitur – with good to very good grades. We offer our congratulations to the pupils and our heartfelt thanks to the Jerusalem Foundation, the project managers at Jerusalem City Council and the volunteer mentors from the Hebrew University.
A first report from the project dated February 2022
Through the support of the T+H Hoene Foundation, a new group of the Infinity program with seventh grade children from Ethiopian families (new immigrants in Israel) could be established in the school year 2021/22, which will be accompanied until the high school graduation. The group consists of 19 students, 13 girls and 6 boys, from eleven different schools from many neighborhoods of Jerusalem. Through this program, the Jerusalem Foundation, in cooperation with the Jerusalem Municipality, provides scholarships, tutoring, support programs and personal assistance to students from socio-economically disadvantaged families in order to raise achievement levels, enable them to attend good schools and best prepare the children for their educational journey. The coordinator, Ella, supervises the group and is the personal contact person for the young people. They are mentored by eight students who study at Jerusalem University. The youngsters receive professional support in the subjects of mathematics, science and technology. They are also introduced to the world of science and technology through courses, lectures and workshops on the university campus and through events outside the university. Through these encounters, students become familiar with the academy and future study opportunities.