An Anchor of Hope in a Stormy
Looking Back on a Year of Coping
Looking Ahead to a Year of Growth
The year that has passed has left a deep mark on Israeli society. It was the second consecutive year in which many children were forced to cope with an unstable reality, disconnection from familiar frameworks, and sustained emotional strain. For families and educational teams, it was a year of daily effort to preserve continuity, meaning, and hope within a constantly changing reality. We are pleased to share with you the story of 2025, a year in which we chose to be a source of light in the place where it matters most: in a child’s heart, in the safe space of the family, and in the classroom where a teacher restores hope.
The Mission: Preventing the Emergence of a Lost Generation
Nitzan operated in this space from a deep sense of mission. Not as a momentary response to crisis, but as an ongoing, professional, and humane presence accompanying children, parents, and teachers along the way. We sought to serve as an anchor of support, partnership, and rebuilding. This year, we invested in programs aimed at reducing the gaps that emerged and became evident upon families’ return home. The process of returning home that characterizes this year is gradual and ongoing, and we work closely with authorities to tailor the most precise response for each locality.
The task at-hand is clear: to prevent the emergence of a lost generation, reduce gaps, and help children across Israel return to everyday life. We know we cannot restore what was lost, but we can be an anchor for children, educational teams, and parents, even when a storm is raging.
From North to South: A National Response on an Unprecedented Scale
Our work extended across the entire country, in communities directly attacked and in those that bore the consequences indirectly. Over the past year, with support from municipalities and from you, our devoted partners, Nitzan served as an educational and emotional anchor for thousands of children, parents, and teachers.
Our national program reached every corner of the country, from the hard-hit southern communities of Sderot, Ofakim, Ashkelon, Be’er Sheva, Kisufim residents temporarily living in Omer, Be’eri residents currently living in Kibbutz Hatzerim, and Netivot, to the evacuated northern communities of Kiryat Shmona, Nahariya, Misgav, Tiberias, Beit She’an, Afula, and Shlomi. Later on, when Iran’s missile attacks caused extensive damage in Bat Yam and Be’er Sheva, we expanded our activity to those areas as well.
Everywhere we went, we encountered different stories but the same need: someone to truly see the child, understand the complexity, and provide a response that is not superficial or temporary.
To date, we have provided tens of thousands of hours of academic, social, and emotional support for children and educational teams, as well as services for parents. Behind these numbers lies something far deeper: stories of children who regained confidence, parents who learned to function again, and teachers who received tools to become the everyday heroes of their students.
Three Circles, One Integrated Response
Our programing represented a broad view of the child’s world. Not only learning, and not only emotion, but the intersection between them and the relationships surrounding the child at home and at school.
Our work is based on a holistic understanding: to help a child, one must address the entire system. From this perspective, we built a comprehensive framework based on three interconnected pillars: academic reinforcement, emotional and social support, and parental and educational guidance. In each area, we provide tailored solutions developed by experts in the field.
The First Circle: Children, From Insecurity to Success
Coping with Learning Gaps
The war created significant learning gaps among children. Thus, in the academic sphere, we found children who had lost confidence in their abilities.
We provided remmedial instruction sessions. Schools identified students with learning gaps, and the students underwent assessment using the monitoring toolkit developed by Nitzan. Our professionals tailored a personalized academic, social, and emotional support plan for each child, and Nitzan’s professional teaching teams delivered the response. Working in small groups and at a differential pace, allowing them to experience success again, understanding that they are capable, and restoring a sense of competence that has eroded.
B-Friendly: Building Emotional and Social Resilience
In the emotional and social sphere, we have created safe spaces, where one can voice and share his\her inner world, or just listen, exactly as they are. This was achieved through B-Friendly, an innovative emotional and social program designed to promote resilience and empathy, while preventing bullying, shaming, and social alienation. The program, serving children ages 9-14, is adapted to coping with trauma and post trauma. It reduces aggression, increases empathy and emotional regulation, and provides children with a safe space to talk about what they are experiencing. In the words of fourth grader Yael: “I learned about myself that I need to focus more on my answers and that I am pretty good. The lessons really help me and increased my confidence.”
Group Emotional Dialogue: A Space to Speak and to Be
The impact of the war on students’ emotional state is evident by the increase in the proportion of children experiencing emotional difficulties. To meet this challenge, we operated group emotional dialogue sessions; these offer safe spaces where children could simply be, share, and understand that they are not alone. Through group dialogue and programs that foster resilience, empathy, and connection with others, children learned to read emotions, understand themselves and their surroundings, and find words for what they had been through.
Fourth grade student, Hodaya, shares that “Nitzan’s group helps me make new friends and also understand other people’s emotions”. Reut, a fifth-grade student, adds that “The meetings helped me manage to talk about my feelings. I like sharing things that happen to me, and it felt good that people listened.” The children’s voices were heard clearly. In their words, the same simple message repeated: someone listened to me. Someone believed in me. Something in me changed.
The Second Circle: Parents, Coping with the Collapse of Parental Functioning
These children’s parents were exhausted. Helpless and emotionally overloaded, their parental capacities were drained. When you no longer have your own emotional resources, how can you strengthen your children?
An Immediate and Multi Layered Response
Nitzan sought to restore parents’ sense of stability, understanding, and practical tools. To provide parents with immediate support, we operated:
- A year-round hotline providing emotional tools for parents
- A Facebook community where parents and professionals share challenges, knowledge, tools, and provide mutual support.
- Personal coaching offering intimate, individualized accompaniment tailored to each family’s needs.
A Success Story from Kiryat Shmona
In Kiryat Shmona, for example, parents this year receive 12 personal coaching sessions that equip them with coping tools. In the words of a local mother: “Since the war, there was great difficulty around my son’s studies. I had to sit with him for long hours, which created severe tension between us. During the coaching sessions, a significant change occurred in his academic functioning. He moved up to the top math group and is aiming to advance in English as well. I no longer sit with him to prepare homework. I trust him more.” Through this process, families rebuild trust in their children and the ability to let go of control and build a strengthening relationship.
The Third Circle: Teachers, Training for a Role in a New Reality
Educational teams who stood on the front line throughout this period also carried a heavy burden. They were asked to contain, teach, support, and sometimes do so while coping with their own difficult experiences.
Teachers are the quiet heroes of this crisis. Many were themselves affected, evacuated, worried, yet still arrived each morning at the classroom and tried to restore a sense of stability. They too needed reinforcement.
“The Teacher as Coach” Program
In Ashkelon and Acre, we launched the Teacher as Coach program. This project focused on strengthening the resilience of educational personnel and providing coaching tools to cope with the complexities children face.
Professional Courses: Expert Teacher in Adapted Instruction
In cooperation with the municipalities of Sderot, Kiryat Shmona, and Rishon LeZion, we launched municipal certification courses for teachers, Expert Teacher in Adapted Instruction, with dozens of teachers participating. This was done to strengthen teachers’ ability to support students with learning gaps and to enhance the capacity of municipal education systems to advance students.
The professional training and accompaniment we provided this year were designed to strengthen teachers not only as educators, but as educational leaders in a complex reality. From the learning emerged once again the understanding that educational change does not happen instantly, but requires patience, persistence, and a willing heart.
Tzahalit Abutbul, a teacher at Dror School in Sderot: “In the course, we learned that this magic does not happen on its own. It requires work, patience, and a great deal of heart.”
A Pivotal Year for the Future
As the year progressed, one central message became increasingly clear: we are at a significant crossroads. The way we choose to accompany children, parents, and teachers now will profoundly affect the years ahead.
This is a pivotal year that will largely shape the growth trajectory of children, educational teams, and parents from here on. We know the impact of this year will resonate for years to come, in the child who regains trust in themselves, in the parent who learns to empower rather than pressure, in the teacher who remembers that they are not only teaching content but shaping lives. From here emerges our forward-looking perspective.
Looking Ahead: 2026, A Year of Growth and Deepening
We are looking ahead to 2026 with hope. We hope that this will be a year in which the central challenge is no longer responding to crisis, but accompanying recovery processes, gradual return to routine, and building long term resilience.
Nitzan enters this year with accumulated knowledge, significant field experience, and a deep commitment to continue being present along the way. We aspire for 2026 to be a year in which we deepen our work, strengthen educational and emotional continuity, and ensure that the harm of the recent period does not become a fixed reality.
The year 2026 will be a year of continued growth, strengthening, and deepening. We will continue to be there, as an anchor, as a safe space, as a point of light.
In a world where war still casts a shadow, we choose to illuminate a point of light, one child at a time, one parent at a time, one teacher at a time. Because ultimately, the future of these children is the future of us all.
Our Commitment
Every child deserves a real opportunity to grow. Every family deserves accompaniment. Every teacher deserves support. Step by step, person by person, we build community resilience. This is Nitzan’s path and commitment for the years ahead.
With Heartfelt Thanks
Our gratitude goes to our partners, foundations and donors in Israel and around the world, municipalities, the Ministry of Education, and every dedicated member of Nitzan’s team who turned vision into reality, day after day. Your trust, partnership, and willingness to walk together made it possible to transform a difficult period into a journey of repair and hope.
Photography: Storytime Productions
