Kehilla Projects

BOSTON-DNEPROPETROVSK

Boston's Jewish Community Relations Council (JCRC) Committee for Post-Soviet Jewry established a Kehilla project with Dnepropetrovsk, Ukraine in 1992.  The project, which is financially supported by a special allocation by the Overseas Committee of the Combined Jewish Philanthropies (CJP), draws active involvement from Boston area organizations, institutions, Jewish community centers, and religious and Jewish day schools.

Programs include the establishment of a non-sectarian women's and children's health clinic, efforts on behalf of children with special needs (including a parent-teacher resource center), cultural exchanges between Jewish students and elderly in Dnepropetrovsk and Boston, and fundraising activities.

On November 12, 1997, the Boston Jewish community founded the Women and Children’s Clinic, a non-sectarian ambulatory clinic in Dnepropetrovsk for women and children.

• The project involved overhauling and renovating a dilapidated clinic, installing modern equipment, and training doctors in use of the new equipment. 

• The Clinic offers free medical services to the community.

• The Clinic was founded in response to abhorrent medical conditions in Ukraine. In the city of Dnepropetrovsk, infectious diseases, including diphtheria, are widespread. There is also a high rate of cervical cancer and infertility; many women have repeated abortions under dangerous conditions. The city suffers from a shortage of vaccines and antibiotics.

• The Clinic was founded in conjunction with Boston area hospitals, the Dnepropetrovsk Jewish community, and the city’s municipal and medical centers. The two doctors who initiated the project teach at Harvard Medical School, one specializing in gynecology, the other in pediatrics. 

• The clinic project is funded by CJP, the Jewish Federation, and private donors.

• The Boston-Dnepropetrovsk Health Care Foundation is working to secure vaccines from pharmaceutical companies to immunize approximately 10,000 children.

  Another segment of the Dnepropetrovsk Kehilla Project, administered through Boston's Jewish Family & Children's Service of Greater Boston, is the Special Needs Initiative. A major activity of the Special Needs Initiative has been the establishment of a Special Needs Education Resource Center at Bet-Hana Jewish Women's Teacher College in Dnepropetrovsk. The Resource Center is a school for for children who would otherwise not receive schooling, an after-school tutoring program for children attending the Day School, a parent support and training program, and a teacher and student teacher training program.
  
   
    photo by Sue Wolf-Fordham
  
  The Initiative, chaired by Boston Jewish community activists Dr. Judy Wolf and Sue Wolf-Fordham, also provides training programs; resource and training materials; toys, art supplies and adaptive equipment; and medications to children at the Resource Center.  Professionals in pediatrics and child development from Tufts University, Tufts University's Eliot-Pearson Department of Child Development and Floating Hospital at New England Medical Center volunteer their time working with the initiative. 
  
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  The Initiative focuses on enhancing community inclusion and improving the quality of life for children with disabilities and their families who live in Dnepropetrovsk. 
  

  

To support the Special Needs Initiative, contact Sue Wolf-Fordham or Judy Wolf, The Special Needs Initiative, 4 Demar Rd., Lexington, MA 02420 USA.  (781) 863-6454, Fax (781) 674-9850, email wolffordham@rcn.com



  photo by Sue Wolf-Fordham

Over 30 Boston-area Hebrew school classes, Jewish day schools and Jewish community center groups participate in cultural exchanges and fundraising activities with the Dnepropetrovsk Jewish school through the Kehillah project.

For more information on the Boston-Dnepropetrovsk Kehilla Project, visit:
Boston - Combined Jewish Philanthropies
Boston - Jewish Community Relations Council

If you would like to support the Dnepropetrovsk Kehilla Project, or for more information, please contact Maxine Lyons, Coordinator of JCRC's DKP at (617) 457-8651.