With schedules disrupted, programs suspended and caretakers unable to report for work, people with disabilities, their families and professionals who work with them are experiencing new realities and experimenting with creative solutions.
Original Article Published On The Respectability
Founded in 1948, Israel’s accessibility for people with disabilities was not a top priority. I recall several almost comical incidents from nearly 20 years ago when helping people with disabilities navigate Israel. On one group trip, while pushing 20-something Rivka in a wheelchair in northern Israel, the sidewalk abruptly ended. We carried her in the wheelchair to where sidewalk eventually continued. In the Old City, near the Kotel, I asked soldiers where was the accessible path. They lifted Rivka up the steps in her wheelchair.
Fortunately, Israel today is fairly accessible and straightforward: from riding buses, to shopping in grocery stores, to studying in university. Modern Israel has become a well-known destination for accessible travel.
Israel’s road to accessibility has been a journey. Physical accessibility doesn’t happen automatically; nor does shifting attitudes toward people with disabilities and accessibility.
Twenty years ago, Yuval Wagner, a recently paralyzed helicopter pilot, ignited a public awareness campaign. Wagner eventually founded Access Israel. Having elicited President Weizman’s attention, the President invited Wagner to celebrate this accomplishment together. Access Israel’s impact on access and inclusion of people with disabilities is now experienced worldwide.
Each year, over 800 people with and without disabilities from 22 countries visit Israel to participate in Access Israel’s International Conference, where they learn about accessibility from technology to tourism; experience Israel’s accessible beaches; visit the now-accessible Old City of Jerusalem; and learn about Access Israel’s work in Israel and worldwide.
“We are the only Israeli organization that focuses on accessibility and inclusion– not only for people in wheelchairs, not only for people who are blind or who have hearing impairments— but for all kinds of disabilities and in all fields of life,” reports Wagner.
Alan T. Brown, Director of Public Impact for the Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation, a board member of FAISR (Friends of Access Israel) and a person with quadriplegia, attests to Israel’s efforts to increase accessibility. Several years ago, Brown met Access Israel CEO Michal Rimon, expressed his desire to visit Israel, and shared concerns about accessibility. Rimon enthusiastically invited Brown to Israel to experience its accessibility firsthand. Brown later summarized, “Something like this has to be done in America – something that is proactive and aggressive in attaining accessibility for all. I even went on the tour under the Kotel walls in a wheelchair! I am amazed at how Israel is using more than ramps to include the disabled. They are also doing it through corporate sensitivity training.”
Pre-COVID-19, tourists with a wide range of disabilities experienced the country, holy to many of the world’s religions. I have been leading trips to Israel for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities for many years. I have served as group leader for multiple trips with Camp Ramah’s Tikvah disabilities inclusion program and Shorashim Birthright Israel Asperger’s trips. Each trip’s participants travel the country, visit Jerusalem’s Old City, Tel Aviv, Old Jaffa, Safed, the Golan Heights, Masada, and the Dead Sea. We go camel riding and explore off-the-beaten path gems such as the chocolate factory at Kibbutz Ein Zivan. Tikvah’s and Birthright’s participants experience a multi-sensory, multi-cultural country with great excitement—and no barriers.
Close to 2,100 young adults with disabilities from around the world have experienced Israel on nearly 100 Accessibility Israel trips, according to Elizabeth Sokolsky, executive director of Birthright Israel North America. Birthright Israel offers approximately ten accessibility trips annually for participants with a variety of medical, developmental, and physical disabilities including: Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD), Asperger’s, vision or hearing impairments, IBD and Crohn’s Disease and other medical issues, and for participants who use wheelchairs.
Sokolsky emphasizes, “It is our belief that every eligible young adult should be able to travel to Israel to experience their birthright. . . . Accessibility trips typically have fewer participants than a traditional Birthright Israel trip, with a larger participant to staff ratio as well as other programmatic accommodations as needed. Birthright Israel also offers opportunities for young adults with a disability to join a classic trip as an inclusion participant, who may be accompanied by an aide or shadow.”
We eagerly look forward to a day soon when tourists with and without disabilities will again have the opportunity to experience Israel, celebrate Israel’s 72 years of growth, and dream of a day when the country will be even more fully accessible to everyone.
Original Article Published On The Camp Ramah in New England
This year, as Ramah New England celebrates 50 years of the Tikvah Program, inclusive camping and the visionary leadership of Herb and Barbara Greenberg, it is worth acknowledging their equally impressive vision for vocational training within our Ramah camps. Herb Greenberg recounts, “I recall at early parent conferences that most parents were ecstatic about the outcomes of the summer and at the same time were expressing frustration and anguish that Tikvah had a cutoff age. So again, in the late 70’s we started the vocational training. The first efforts were one to one recommendations in the kitchen, bakery, mercaz and the gan. “
In my 15 years as director of the Tikvah Program at CRNE, we worked to expand the Voc Ed program. Participants learned jobs skills as well as what is known as “soft skills,” on the job behavior and etiquette required for success, and have been employed at such job sites as the Greenberg Guest House, chadar ochel, Voc Ed bakery, the gan and the misrad. We have also offered supported, salaried employment to some voc ed graduates as well as to others with disabilities.
Proudly, each Ramah camp with a Tikvah Program offers vocational training programs, known by such names as Ezra and Atzmayim, with some programs offering employment in local towns near camp–in coffee shops, grocery stores, day care centers, motels and children’s museums.
Even with the success of our vocational training programs, all families and Ramah programs still face the same issue the Greenbergs were dealing with in the 1970s—what happens when young adults “age out” of high school and camp? Many Voc Ed participants enjoy meaningful employment at camp—and are unemployed or underemployed in their home communities.
I have been concerned with parents not knowing what options exist when they age—a period commonly known as “falling off the cliff.” Thanks to the generous support of the Covenant Foundation, I have embarked on what has so far been a two-year journey to identify creative job sites and training programs for people with disabilities. While some major companies are to be commended for their programs which train and support people with disabilities (Our Tikvah grad, Aaron, who has been working at Walgreens distribution center in Connecticut is a great example!), many parents have had to be very creative—often starting their own programs and businesses. I have identified car washes (Rising Tide and Gleam), pizza stores (Smiling with Hope Pizza), t-shirt and sock companies (Spectrum Design and John’s Crazy Socks), hydroponic farming (Vertical Harvest), computer (Blue Star Recycling) — and even microbreweries (Perkiomen Valley Brewery). (https://howardblas.com/disabilities/job-sites/)
Perhaps the most exciting businesses are the businesses started by people with disabilities. Truly Scrumptious by Alexa, https://www.trulyscrumptiousbyalexa.com/, was started by our very own Alexa Chalup, a 14 year participant in various Ramah programs—inclusion, Seminar, Amitzim and Voc Ed. Who doesn’t enjoy custom made Oreos dipped in chocolate—with special logos and monograms?! Alexa was invited last week to share the story of her company and to share her creations with 125 attendees at the 3-day Covenant Foundation Project Directors meeting in Pearl River, New Jersey.
Alexa told the packed room at the conference, “In High School, I sold coffee and baked goods out of a Kiosk and enjoyed making people smile. It gave me an idea, that coffee would taste much better with a Truly Scrumptious Treat by Alexa. My passion lead to the creation of my very own business. At Camp Ramah, I met Howard 14 years ago as a first year camper. I’m now in their Voc Ed program, which is a combination of staff and life skills training. My jobs at camp included food prep in the kitchen and the bakery. Both taught me skills that helped prepare me for my business. The lessons I learned have really changed my life. My goal is to dedicate more and more time to Truly Scrumptious by Alexa as the business grows. Eventually, I would like to hire my friends, all with different special abilities, to grow my business. It’s important that everyone has a place to go every day, do what they love, have a wonderful social life with friends and keep teaching the world everyone can be productive and have a dream. I would like to thank Covenant Foundation for this opportunity to tell my story. Through your support of Howard, his programs have taught me skills and confidence that made my dream come true by starting my own company, like anyone else.”
We thank the Greenbergs for their visionary leadership, Ramah for continuing their mission and to funders like the Covenant Foundation for their support. We hope Alexa’s story continues to inspire others!
I will be visiting Camp Ramah and here is my schedule:-
Here are some photos when I was teaching from Camp in Rockies
This summer, Howard will also be visiting creative job sites in Wyoming, Colorado, New Jersey, New York and beyond.