By reimagining rehabilitation, Israel-based charity ADI is advancing ability for all. Peter Sammons reports:
BACKROUND
Israeli charity ADI serves disabled and disadvantaged, including Israeli Arabs and Christians. As they say, it’s all in the name: ‘ADI’ celebrates Ability at every level, promotes Diversity, and insists on Inclusion.
It was my privilege to speak recently with Oren Selinger, the Director of Strategic Partnerships of ADI. He explained that ADI run state of the art facilities in its Jerusalem-based disability school, whilst it also runs a ‘rehab village’ in the south of the country. In fact, as a charity, ADI is multi-faceted and multi-disciplinary – and very, very professional.
LOOKING IN
It’s not often that visiting a website provides powerful witness of an organisation’s overall structure and successes, but ADI’s is the exception! ADI is a well run and highly professional charity set up to provide care services for severely disabled people. As such it provides a fascinating ‘benchmark’ of care for the disabled (by other charities, and indeed by State-sector actors such as Britain’s ‘NHS’). Furthermore, soundly-run charities remind us of the powerful and valuable contribution made by civil society actors to the social fabric of any advanced and industrialised nation . Civil society is a bedrock of all democracy.
ADI is Israel’s most comprehensive provider of residential care for individuals with severe disabilities and the leader of the national rehabilitation movement. While empowering hundreds of Israel’s most vulnerable citizens to advance well beyond their initial prognoses and live happy, dignified, and meaningful lives, ADI is also establishing fully inclusive communities and laying the groundwork for the provision of the highest-level rehabilitative care for all.
EDUCATION
ADI’s comprehensive special education school system is tailored to meet the unique challenges and individual abilities of residents and children with disabilities from surrounding communities between the ages of 3 and 21.
ADI Negev’s ‘Smart Classroom’ is equipped with a mobile communication computer, touch screen and projector that enable the teacher to project the communication board directly onto the wall.
The Life Skills Program at ADI enables maximum possible resident participation in everyday activities such as food preparation, laundry, setting the table and more, increasing self-confidence and feelings of purpose.
CREATIVE ARTS THERAPY
Most ADI residents suffer from respiratory complications and breathing difficulties. The charity’s Respiratory Therapy Program provides residents with the ongoing respiratory treatments that enable them to live quality lives to their maximum ability.
Music, they say, is the key to the soul. At ADI, children and residents learn to use music as an enjoyable and rewarding form of self-expression and social interaction.
With its many physical and emotional benefits, hydrotherapy is one of the most enjoyable and beneficial therapeutic avenues available for children with severe disabilities. Hydrotherapy improves and strengthens physical abilities, coordination, sensory-awareness and the respiratory and pulmonary systems and enhances quality of life through the positive release of energy and building self-esteem.
ADI’s pioneering advanced Alternative Communication Program utilizes cutting-edge augmented communication technologies to find the optimal communication method for each resident. Assessment and treatment of communication challenges and disorders through language intervention activities thwart frustration as ADI children learn to verbally express their wants, needs and feelings. ADI Communication Therapists also help improve congenital or acquired eating and swallowing disorders, enabling children to eat and enjoy regular food.
Employing numerous original and stimulating supportive activities, ADI Occupational Therapists help improve mental and physical health of children and young adults through encouragement and motivation to reach maximum levels of independence. Physiotherapists address and challenge disabilities through innovative exercises and practices that help residents and patients improve functioning and overcome congenital or acquired physical limitations.
Every child benefits from fresh air and sunshine, periodic changes of scenery and exciting activities. ADI make sure that their students and residents enjoy the same experiential fun as other children their age, with action-packed summer and winter camps, nature outings, trips to the local mall and more, all of which serve to create happy and stimulating quality lives.
VOCATIONAL TRAINING
The ADI ‘Therapeutic Greenhouse’ enables residents to learn about care and responsibility as they watch the seeds they planted, nurtured and cared for grow and develop. Residents also make planters and pot the plants, which are then sold to the general public. Proceeds from sales are re-invested into the greenhouse.
ABOUT ADI ISRAEL
ADI provides residents and special education students with severe disabilities with the individualized growth plans and specialized services they need to grow and thrive, its rehabilitation patients with the inpatient and outpatient treatments and therapies they need to heal and return to their lives, and the community at large with tangible opportunities for encountering disability, raising awareness and promoting acceptance. It’s all in the name: ADI celebrates Ability at every level, promotes Diversity and insists on Inclusion.
The charity is committed to helping individuals living with and touched by disability.
Serving all parts of Israeli society, we aim to empower every person to reach or return to the height of their abilities, as we share our knowledge and experience for the benefit of all.
ADI focuses on enhancing and enriching the lives of every person it serves; individuals with disabilities, those facing rehabilitation, and family members coping with new realities. Regardless of how a person’s life is impacted by disability, ADI aim to be the extended family who can help them move forward.
Founded in 2005, the 40-acre ADI Negev-Nahalat Eran Rehabilitation Village was named to honour the memory of Eran Almog, the late son and guiding light of founders Didi and Major General (Res.) Doron Almog. Fuelled by his love for Eran, who was born with severe autism and cognitive disabilities, Doron Almog led the creation of the one-of-a-kind rehabilitation village in Israel’s south, a community where people from diverse backgrounds and all levels of ability can live, heal and grow together.
As Chairman of ADI Negev-Nahalat Eran, Doron Almog continues to lead and guide the village’s progress and advancement as a model of true inclusion and an example of what’s possible when we lead with our hearts! A celebrated IDF veteran and Israel Prize Laureate, Doron stands as a symbol of disability care – and inclusion – who advances a crucial social message: “The strength of the human chain is only as strong as its weakest link.”
In addition to caring for and empowering more than 300 residents and special education students with severe disabilities, ADI’s expansive and progressive village pioneers cutting-edge therapeutic and recovery services for anyone touched by disability, cultivates empathy and acceptance through education, and provides individuals with disabilities with a framework for personal advancement, social integration and gainful employment.
Day after day, the village’s innovative kindergarten integrates children born with disabilities and their non-disabled peers to promote empathy and acceptance. Residents with severe disabilities, local students, politicians, and high-tech entrepreneurs swim and receive therapy together in the same hydrotherapy pool, and tens of adults with disabilities have found real and meaningful employment as the village’s gardening staff. Unlike anything that came before it, ADI Negev-Nahalat Eran is an innovative social center and the exemplar for a truly inclusive community.
FACILITIES
ADI Negev-Nahalat Eran features fully accessible residential villas for people with multiple disabilities and complex medical conditions, an intensive care hospital wing, special education school, green care farm, hydrotherapy and sports therapy complexes, therapeutic horse stable and petting zoo, and The Harvey and Gloria Kaylie Rehabilitation Medical Center – the first-ever rehabilitation hospital in Israel’s south.
The Harvey and Gloria Kaylie Rehabilitation Medical Center is improving the care of Israel’s older adults and highly dependent patients by implementing revolutionary rehabilitation techniques, employing international experts in various fields to train its medical residents, and offering services not available anywhere else in Israel, including an Oncological Rehabilitation Clinic to help rehabilitation patients successfully reintegrate into their communities. The Harvey and Gloria Kaylie Rehabilitation Medical Center is also creating more housing and jobs in the Negev, establishing a model of community-based inclusive health services, and disseminating rehabilitative best practices via Israel’s first translational research lab.
ADI has grown into a global community founded on the principles of sensitivity, inclusion, commitment and kindness. It makes a real difference in the lives of Israel’s most vulnerable citizens – children, adolescents and adults with severe disabilities and complex medical conditions.
At Christian Comment we hope to follow with some supplementary reports on the unique ADI charity. Meantime it is noteworthy that the charity supports needful people from across Israel’s diverse population. Arab, Christian and Jewish. Given the present (October 2024) conflict situation, ADI is also providing rehab services to terrorist’s victims and open warfare victims across the spectrum of age range. More information here:
https://adi-il.org/in-the-press/
Please remember ADI in your prayers and visit their fascinating website periodically to keep up to date with their excellent work.
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