Youth at Risk - Dugit Beach

During the months of summer vacation, the Dugit Beach on the Kinneret becomes a "home away from home" for a surprising number of Israeli teens. Teens camp at the beach not only as a fun vacation spot, but as a place to find peers and escape the pressures of home. Not surprisingly, this beach has become a home for a number of dangerous teenage behaviors including heavy smoking, provocative dress, violence, peer pressure, alcohol, drugs and casual sexual relations.
For several years, ELEM – an organization that works with youth at risk – has built an open tent on the Dugit beach during the summer months. The tent, open from early evening throughout the night, houses professional advisors and volunteer educators, therapists and students available to teenagers who need information, guidance, support, and even just a sympathetic ear. The discussions can be private, between an adolescent and a volunteer, and in a group setting between several volunteers or adolescents. ELEM personnel also attempt to identify and reach high risk youths on the beach. In addition, boys who are not at risk occasionally visit the tent to talk, take a break or just have light refreshments. Most of the boys visiting the tent come from religious homes.
During the summer of 2009, students studying in Orot's Department of Social and Communal Education joined ELEM's Dugit Beach project. While the Orot students hoped to gain valuable field experience, they had much to offer as well. As most of the teens that frequent Dugit Beach come from religious homes, ELEM turned to Orot to help deal with the problems and dilemmas unique to religious youth.
Orot's participation in the Dugit Beach project required thorough preparation. In addition to their normal educational training, Orot President Rabbi Neria Guttel and Head of Religious Education Rabbi Yonah Goodman addressed the students before the trip. Nurit Serri, head of the department together with Rabbi Goodman supervised the work throughout the night, and led a discussion on the beach at the end of the night.
Drawing conclusions from their experience, which Orot's students found the experience meaningful and challenging, meeting directly with youth at risk, especially from religious backgrounds, raised difficult questions: how could this happen to us? How should we as a community deal with these types of problems?
The students and the staff emerged from the project with a positive attitude: they felt that their meetings contributed to the youth and likely helped them, albeit in a limited way. They found that as religious volunteers, they could play a very significant role in affecting teens because of in their unique understanding of religious adolescents at risk.
In the years to come, Orot hopes to make its participation in the Dugit Beach Project a permanent part of students' volunteer work.