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COMMUNITY
Malki fund helps
Israeli families
Staff Reporter
A
NEW unit which provides specialised home-care equipment for children
with special needs was launched this week in Jerusalem by the Yad Sarah
organisation in conjunction with Keren Malki, a foundation named in
memory of Melbourne-born teenager Malka Chana Roth.
Malka,
15, who was known to everyone as Malki, was killed in the terrorist
attack on Jerusalem's Sbarro pizza restaurant on August 9, 2001.
The
Keren Malki unit was dedicated at a simple ceremony on Tuesday attended
by Malki's parents Frimet and Arnold Roth.
Mr
Roth said the launch of the project would have made Malki very proud.
"The pain of her absence is especially raw for Frimet and me."
The
project hopes to initially help about 250 families in Jerusalem. It will
provide a much-needed service of lending rehabilitation and therapy
equipment to families raising children with severe disabilities.
Mr
Roth said this is the first initiative of the Malki Foundation (known in
Hebrew as Keren Malki) which was established to meet the needs of
families in Israel who have children suffering from severe handicaps and
want their children to remain at home.
He
said their family experience in raising their youngest child Haya
Elisheva, who is blind and suffers from multiple disabilities, provided
a spur to establish the new unit.
"We
felt we needed to raise enough money from donations to ensure that when
we did set something up, it would make a measurable, practical
difference to people's lives," Roth said.
"A
child with severe disabilities is always going to be a challenge for the
parents and siblings, but what people who are unaffected by such things
often don't see is how much of this involves clashing with your own
insurance fund; arguing with government bureaucrats who claim to know
better than you do what's best for your child; and standing up for your
legal rights.
"Sooner
or later it crushes you. Many people give up and turn to institutional
care.
"Yad
Sarah's mission has been to keep the ill and the elderly in their homes
and out of institutions as long as possible.
"They
stand for the view, which Frimet and I definitely share, that home care
is better than the best of institutional care.
"Home
care also costs a lot less - to the family and to the country - so it
makes every kind of sense as an option.
"In
our joint venture with Yad Sarah, we'll be going well beyond simply
providing special equipment on long-term loans," Roth said.
"There
will be therapies and training, as well as advice and advocacy so that
people can learn how to get their rights and how to avoid the traps that
are out there.
"As
we grow our activity beyond the pilot stage, we expect to be providing
professional therapy services in people's homes which we think will
solve a range of other problems."
Yad
Sarah is a community-based organisation with about 6000 volunteers who
provide home-care support services.
The
work of Keren Malki has been assisted by private and business donors
including the Pratt Foundation in Melbourne and the Jerusalem-based
technology company InSyst |
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