Friday, November 17, 2023

In war, more than ever, the work of the Malki Foundation

A version of this article by Ely Cohen originally appeared in the Jewish Chronicle (UK) on November 16, 2023 under the title "These Israeli families need our help more than ever". 


The work of the Malki Foundation, which helps families in Israel raising a child with extreme special needs, is particularly important in the wake of October 7

From its inception, the work of the Malki Foundation, set up in 2001 in memory of Malki Roth, who was killed age 15 in a terrorist attack, has been to help ease the burden that rests on the shoulders of a specific population: families in Israel raising a child with extreme special needs.

They are among the most under-resourced people in Israel, and for a significant number of them, it’s a challenge made even harsher when, often for socio-economic reasons, they live far from Israel’s main centres.

We empower these families to keep their children at home by providing them with paramedical therapies at their homes.

Now we’re in a war that began explosively, and of the 40 children and families currently in our Therapists on Wheels programme that focuses on Israel’s periphery communities, 20 — all of them families with a child with severe disabilities — live within 15km of Israel’s Gaza border, in the heart of the warzone. [Background: "Death, destruction, debris mark borderline kibbutz communities near Gaza", JNS, October 17, 2023]

Realising how close some families are to the currently active battlefields, we have been texting and calling families who, in some cases, have got Malki Foundation’s support for years.

We have managed to get in touch with all of them, getting some sense of their needs and what we can do to help, and thankfully, all are physically fine. As for trauma, only time will tell.

Our speech therapist lives in Kfar Aza, a kibbutz just 1.5 kilometers from the Gaza border. Hamas terrorists took over Kfar-Aza on October 7, and hostages were taken.

It’s a story of horror, as our therapist described in a WhatsApp message she sent almost two days after the attack. “The IDF evacuated us, and we are on the way to Eilat. What we survived is a miracle…”

Netiv HaAsara is a moshav right on the Gaza border. It, too, was invaded by Hamas terrorists. The family of an eight-year-old child with severe disabilities, which is supported by the Malki Foundation program, lives there.

The parents were reluctant to share much detail but thanked us for staying in touch and for our prayers. We were left pondering what the family must have endured until the IDF rescued them.

Because we have long-running relations with the families, it’s evident that some of the families need much more help while settling into a new and temporary home.

A family with a disabled child left Ashkelon for Rishon Letzion after a missile hit their parking lot and totaled their custom-fitted, wheelchair-accessible vehicle. It will take three months until they can get a new car modified for their child’s needs, and in the meantime the family is housebound.

One family rushed to leave the town as they were suffering from endless amounts of missiles. As the family had a small car, they had no room for some of the special equipment their child needed. It has been over a week since, but the traumatised parents are too frightened to go back and pick up the equipment.

As schools in the south are not all open yet, children have been unable to receive the necessary paramedical therapies. However, the Malki Foundation has been providing therapy sessions at the children’s homes, ensuring the continuity of their treatments.

Due to the special relationships we have forged over the years, we are working on matching relocated families with a temporary therapist to maintain treatment continuity. It’s a privilege - but also a heavy obligation for us.

Providing emotional and physical support to families during their child’s therapy is as important as the therapy itself.

Our work has always been about conveying to the family that we stand with them and let them know someone is there to help, support, and advise. That while fighting for their child, they are not entirely alone.

*  *  *

An emergency support fund was established in the past two weeks by Malki Foundation UK. Contact us at office@malkifoundation.org.uk or in the UK at phone number 0203-637-4245

Details and how to give your support are here. Or click on the thumbnail image at left.

Ely Cohen is the director of Keren Malki, Jerusalem, The Malki Foundation UK, Registered United Kingdom Charity No. 1164793, raises funds for Keren Malki. 

Tuesday, October 24, 2023

An emergency services update: Being in a war

 

Registered UK Charity 1164793
Official Address: The Limes, 1339 High Road, Whetstone, London N20 9HR
www.MalkiFoundation.org.uk


Malki Foundation UK (registered in the United Kingdom as a charity - number 1164793) invites you to take part in our emergency services update focusing on the families we serve in Israel’s southern border communities.

Thursday, October 26, 2023
Starting at 7:45 pm UK time
Via ZOOM

  • Children with disabilities
  • The families who love them
  • Being in a war

Founded in Israel in 2001, the Malki Foundation undertook the mission of empowering and helping families of children with extreme special needs in concrete ways. In the years since then, more than 3,000 families from Israel’s Christian, Druze, Muslim and Jewish populations have benefited from our programs.

The war that erupted on Shabbat, October 7, 2023, has upended Israel and the region, as well as Israeli families from every part of the socio-demographic spectrum. The work of the Malki Foundation is suddenly more challenging and dramatically more relevant. How we are now intervening to help families in Israel’s periphery, especially the south, is an absorbing narrative we believe you will want to know about.

Via Zoom from London, Geoffrey Hartnell, the chair of Malki Foundation UK’s board of trustees will lead a conversation with two guests in Israel: Arnold Roth, who, with his wife Frimet founded the Malki Foundation and serves as its honorary chair, and Ely Cohen, who directs Malki Foundation’s activities from Jerusalem.

On the agenda:
  • The difficulties the Malki Foundation faces following the horrendous attack on Israel by Hamas
  • The impact on families and children with severe disabilities and the essential therapies we deliver
  • How in these new and difficult conditions we aim to help these families get through the trauma.
You are invited to join the conversation! Click the “I will be attending” button below to reserve your place in this Zoom live event.

If for any reason the "I will be attending" button fails to get you to the sign-up form, please email your contact details to alison@malkifoundation.org.uk

A link to the online Zoom event will be emailed to you once you are registered.

Sunday, October 8, 2023

War

Image Source: Jerusalem Post
A note to the Malki Foundation’s friends and supporters


October 8, 2023

From its inception, the work of the Malki Foundation has been to help ease the burden that rests on the shoulders of a specific population: families in Israel raising a child with extreme special needs. They number in the thousands and they are among the most under-resourced people in this country.

As most of us realize, burdens like theirs are not distributed equally. But for a significant number of the families, it’s a challenge made even harsher when, often for socio-economic reasons, they live far from Israel’s main centers.

Now we’re in a war that began explosively yesterday and no one can say when it will end.

From our office in Jerusalem this morning, realizing how close some of them living in Israel’s periphery communities are to the currently-active battlefields, we started reaching out. We have been texting and calling families who in some cases have gotten Malki Foundation’s support for years. They are people and stories we know well. I felt we had to get some sense of what their needs are - specifically now - and what we can do to help.

More than a dozen of the children with severe disabilities that are in our programs live in what is today the combat zone. Four of our therapists do too.

The effort to make contact has been stressful and is ongoing. But as I write this, we have managed to touch base with all of them and thankfully all are physically fine. As for trauma and shock, only time will tell.

One of our speech therapists is a resident of Kfar Aza, a kibbutz village located between Netivot and Sderot and just 1.5 kilometers (1 mile) from the Gaza border. It’s in the news here today for the worst of reasons: it was taken over by Hamas terrorists yesterday and hostages were taken. It’s an unfolding story of horror.

It took hours to reach our therapist. When I got through, she responded: "The IDF has evacuated us and we are on the way to Elat. What we survived is a miracle. May we all know better, quieter days."

Netiv HaAsara is a moshav of about 900 residents that sits practically on the Gaza border. It too was invaded by Hamas terrorists yesterday. The family of an eight-year-old child with severe disabilities and which is supported by one of Malki Foundation’s programs lives there. They were reluctant to share much detail but thanked us for staying in touch and for our prayers. I was left pondering what the family must have endured until the IDF rescued them.

Our work has always been about conveying to the family that we stand with them. We do practical things, of course, mostly focused on vital equipment and essential therapies that, for reasons hard to comprehend, they find hard or impossible to get via Government of Israel channels.

Beyond that, it’s important that we let them know someone is there to help, to support, even to advise. That in fighting for their child they are not entirely alone.

May we and they all be blessed from Above to quickly see better and more peaceful times.

Ely Cohen
Director of Programs
The Malki Foundation
Jerusalem

Sunday, December 18, 2022

At Chanukah, an appeal for your support


December 2022

A large portion of the financial support we get throughout the year for our work comes from individuals like you who value and acknowledge the work we do at Keren Malki. We are almost at the conclusion of the end-of-year giving season and I am writing now to ask you to have us in mind.

No one in Israel does what we do at the Malki Foundation. The way we operate is unique in a very positive sense. The impact of what we do is without a doubt terrific.

Unfortunately providing support to families who choose to give a child with serious disabilities the kind of excellent care that happens when the child lives at home rather than in institutional care simply does not rank high enough on the Israeli government's list of budget priorities.

This will eventually change. Until it does, we are doing our best to reach out to families and provide our services.

But right now, we have about a hundred such families on our waiting list. We want to admit them to one of our three support programs - but cannot because of our budget limitations. Over the past 6 months, we enrolled an additional 12 families in our programs. And with your help, we hope to bring in all those families in the near future,

The impact of our work with children with disabilities at their homes surrounded by the warmth of the families and with the ongoing interaction of parents is unique and the results are amazing.

Meet Maayan. Today an officer in the IDF and age 22, he joined our program as a child with severe disabilities over fifteen years ago. 

Maayan describes the importance of the therapy treatments he received at that time from the Malki Foundation: 
“Cerebral Palsy will always be part of my life but without the structure and support my parents gave me, and the therapies with the Malki Foundation’s help, I could not have gotten to where I now am. Childhood was a critical time, laying down the foundations for the habits and dreams that empower me today.”
There's more about Maayan’s inspirational journey here.

Let us all take part in giving the Malki Foundation kids a chance to become self-sufficient! Our secure online donations page makes that easy and safe. It's here.

If you can contribute, please know that your donation will let us do what we very much want to do - expand the community of families caring for a child with extreme special needs who are supported in their efforts by the Malki Foundation.

On behalf of  the Malki Foundation,
Happy Chanukah,
Ely Cohen,
Director

Friday, August 12, 2022

Israel's IDF pays tribute to Malki's life

Over on the YouTube page of the Israel Defense Forces, there's a new video that was published this past week to coincide with the 21st anniversary of the awful events at a Jerusalem pizzeria in 2001.

Entitled "The Sbarro Massacre: The Value of Life over Violence", it comes with this summary prepared we imagine by the documentary film makers in the office of the IDF Spokesperson:

After losing his daughter Malki in the Sbarro Massacre 21 years ago, Arnold Roth and his family chose to take the example she showed in life and share it with others. For the terrorists who killed her—and thousands of others over the years—violence and murder is their end goal. For us, life is precious and we do everything to protect, preserve and sanctify it in every way possible. http://www.kerenmalki.org/

We identify with every word. And we're proud and pleased that the work of the Malki Foundation, and the very difficult circumstances that led to its establishment, have gotten this kind of recognition. 

It had already attracted several thousand views in its first couple of days of online presence,

Here's the English language version:


There are separate versions with French subtitles and Spanish subtitles. Please share them with your friends and help us reach wider audiences who need to know about Malki's life and the good work done in her name.

Wednesday, July 20, 2022

Golfing for good

We're grateful to Robert Eisner, a trustee of Malki Foundation UK, for this report.

The Asher Teper Memorial Golf Day (ATMGD) has been taking place annually for the past 17 years. 

It was established to honour the memory of Asher Teper who died in 2005 at the age of 58 from cancer. He established Medivet Veterinary Group in the UK, after emigrating from South Africa. He was also a founding member of Hebrew Order of David (HOD), which annually runs this charity golf day. 

I have been fortunate to be on the ATMGD committee for the last 10 years helping organise the day with 5 other HOD members. My primary responsibility, apart from generally agreeing on the days' format and venue, has been dealing with the three charities and their volunteers and arranging the raffle prizes and silent auction items. 

In the past the event has always been held at Hartsbourne Country Club but this year was moved to the prestigious Brocket Hall Golf Club. 

As always, the day sold out very quickly and was a huge success with many golfers asking to sign up for next year. 

The three charities chosen this year were Camp Simcha, Manna (UK arm of Meir Panim) and Malki Foundation UK. At the dinner afterwards, each charity was given the opportunity to talk about the work that they do. 

This year we raised £27,000 which was our best year ever. Over the last seventeen years, the ATMGD has raised more than £300,000 for charity.

Twenty percent goes to the HOD Charitable Trust to be distributed among the various charities they support.

Scenes from this very successful fund-raising event:

The course

The committee

The winning team members with Sandra Teper

Tuesday, March 8, 2022

Help us deliver Malki Foundation Purim Mishloach Manot baskets...


JOIN US THIS PURIM 
by enabling us to deliver a beautiful Mishloach Manot basket
in your name to the doorstep of the children and families
supported via Malki Foundation!

Join us on Purim to brighten the challenging lives of children with disabilities and the families supported via Malki Foundation. We will bring joy and excitement to the families’ homes by delivering a beautiful Mishloach Manot basket in your name filled with a variety of products, to their doorstep.

(Note: Respecting their privacy, we do not reveal the names of families or children who are supported by the work of the Malki Foundation.)

Purim this year is observed starting during the evening hours of March 16, 2022. (If you are in Jerusalem, you likely know that it's a day later here - and is called Shushan Purim.) 

Your donation of the cost of a basket enables us to deliver Mishloach Manot to one family in your name while also helping to fund our support of many additional children and their families. Order more than one basket and the price per basket is discounted.

Click the link below (depending on where you are ordering from) for prices in your currency and to order a basket to be sent to one of the Israeli families we support on behalf of you and your family:
For more information please contact us at +972-2-567-0602, or by email at office@kerenmalki.org