About Us | הזנק 800

About Us

Early and young childhood is the time when children form their knowledge and opinions based on the social norms that they see around them. It's a key period for teaching positive values. The hours children spend in informal education settings are a valuable opportunity to instill values of shared living, curiosity, understanding others, and social cohesion

Objectives

n Israel, children between the ages of 4 and 9 spend 800 hours each year in the non-formal education system that supplements formal education (afterschool programs, camps, and summer school). The primary role of the non-formal education system is to provide a solution for parents that allows them to complete a full day of work. Our goal is to utilize the 800 hours that children spend in non-formal education settings to instill in them values and skills for shared life in Israeli society and to develop the skills they need for their future life paths.

Our objectives are:

To create an infrastructure for education in values for shared life within the non-formal education settings.
To establish partnerships with public and private entities that operate non-formal education settings to work together to improve these frameworks.
To equip educational staff in afterschool programs with tools that enable them to educate for shared life and impart skills.
To enrich the world of knowledge of the children participating in non-formal education systems and to develop in them an awareness of the diversity of Israeli society and shared life, fostering a critical approach, social activism, solidarity, and empathy.

Methods of Operation

We established this organization due to deep concern about the processes of polarization affecting Israeli society.

Why Early Age?

Education at an early age has the power to establish the necessary foundation for driving social change processes of improvement, which is why we focus on it. Investing in education for values of shared life is especially important for preschool and early elementary school ages, as it is during these years that children form their worldviews, value positions, and social attitudes.

Without an early educational program for shared life, children grow up without understanding social, cultural, and political phenomena and processes, and without a foundation for an involved, influential, and activist position. Investing in the skills of young children is also the most economically effective, as the return on investment is the highest and saves investments at a later age.

Why the Non-Formal Education System?

Children between the ages of 4 and 9 spend 800 hours each year in non-formal education systems that complement formal education (afterschool programs, camps, and summer schools). Despite the numerous hours children spend in non-formal education settings, too little attention and resources are invested in using these hours for education for values and skill development. While the formal education system is burdened with the task of providing academic content to children, the long hours spent in the non-formal education system can be used to provide children with value-based education for shared life, social solidarity, critical thinking, and activism. Investing in the infrastructure of non-formal education allow children to enjoy an enjoyable and intriguing framework, give parents confidence that their children are in an enriching, nurturing, and developing environment, and enable the local education system to offer a quality and enriching solution.

Methods of Operation

Through collaborations with local authorities, municipal corporations, and afterschool program operators, we are spreading a network that enable the training of educational staff in non-formal education settings and the operation of non-formal education frameworks through teams that have undergone appropriate educational training. The training program is based on research and proven training programs in many countries and includes several interrelated components:

Group learning sessions - These sessions focus on raising the educational staff's awareness, strengthening their professional-educational identity, enriching their knowledge about education for shared life, and providing pedagogical tools for implementing this knowledge in the educational framework.
Providing on site guidance and support during implementation stages, in small groups and/or individually, as needed.
Creating learning and support communities, which contribute to empowering the educational staff and making them understand that they have an important educational mission.
Providing rich pedagogical materials. The pedagogical team of the project prepared a program and rich pedagogical materials, which is flexibly adapted to the specific needs of the afterschool education teams.