Adopt a Child with Learning Disabilities

Scholarships for Treatment of Children with Learning Difficulties in the Geographic and Social Periphery of Israel

Nitzan is a nonprofit organization that treats children, youth, and adults who have learning disabilities and ADHD. Nitzan was established in 1964 by parents with children with learning disabilities. Nitzan aims to advance children, adolescents and adults with learning disabilities and ADHD, realize their potential, enabling their integration into mainstream education and helping them develop the skills necessary to become contributing members of society. Nitzan’s services are extended to learning-disabled children and adults, as well as their families, regardless of race, religion or economic status.

Nitzan provides a variety of services in 35 branches all over Israel, from Eilat in the south to Nahariya in the north, including remedial teaching, diagnosis, counseling, rehabilitation services for adults with learning, adaptive and functional disabilities, as well as work adjustment training program for adults with learning disabilities and ADHD, social clubs, and more.

Early diagnosis and treatment
of learning disabilities

can help in identifying specific difficulties and building a tailored intervention plan to acquire reading and writing skills, comprehension and learning strategies and may change these children’s fate. Will enable them to better integrate in the regular educational system, improve their academic achievements, and enhance their self-esteem and belief in their own abilities. Our services are provided through local Nitzan branches. The remedial teaching provided by these branches narrows the educational gaps and helps children perform better.

The absence of early diagnosis and treatment may cause repeated failures, frustration and emotional distress which in some cases may cause a drop out of the education system and deterioration to the margins of society.

As you may know, educational diagnosis is not included in the package of services provided by the Ministry of Education, therefore, children who are not diagnosed are not entitled to inclusion hours, or accommodations in learning or exam taking. In the few cases that children are diagnosed and are entitled to receive educational support, it is not enough and there is crucial need for additional help.

Our Response

Each year Nitzan provides scholarships for about 250 children with learning disabilities and ADHD from disadvantaged backgrounds, who need diagnoses and remedial teaching and whose parents could not afford to pay for essential intervention. Families find themselves in need for a variety of reasons such as illness of family members or loss of work or divorce. The applications are all heartbreaking. Many children come from large families. There are children who come from families in which one or both parents are unemployed. In another case, one child’s father is physically disabled and unemployed, while his mother earns a minimum wage and is the sole provider. Another child’s mother is a cancer patient and although the father is employed, the family struggles with financial difficulties. Another child’s father is ill with serious heart disease, and the mother earns a minimum wage and is the sole provider, which is not enough to cover the costs of expensive medications. In some families, there is more than one child with learning disabilities, and they all need suitable treatment, which is out of reach of the family’s budget. All applicants come from families that suffer from economic difficulties and do not have the means to cover the children’s remedial education. To ease their learning difficulties, as part of our scholarships fund, Nitzan responded to hundreds of applications this year. The children who receive Nitzan’s scholarships are being provided with educational diagnosis and remedial teaching twice a week for 3 months.

With the provision of these scholarships, we can diagnose and treat children to increase their chances of improving their academic achievements, raising their self-esteem and belief in their abilities.

David Ben-Gurion said: “A strong society is measured by the way it treats the weak.” and we at Nitzan are working to strengthen and empower these children to help them become contributing citizens in the community.