Category: Special Needs Tribute

A Letter Meant for You, Our Dear Friends and Supporters

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Identifying problems in preschool will ensure a more successful school career.

Ezer Mizion has always worked on two fronts. The organization provides services for those undergoing crises in their lives such as families dealing with serious illness, special children, an elderly or Alzheimer parent or a member dealing with mental health challenges.

In addition, some difficulties can be prevented, surmounted or ameliorated by means of educational programs offered to families and professionals.  Authoritative, up-to-date information will enlighten those involved presenting informative, insightful elucidation of the situation. The family and professionals become empowered with a greater understanding of the disorder which leads to identifying means of overcoming the difficulties or at least preventing exacerbation of the state of affairs.

Ezer Mizion’s preschool division is a prime example. The organization has developed a much-lauded early intervention program which serves to shed light during the preschool years on difficulties that would interfere with the child’s success in his later education. Means of identifying the problems and lessening or eliminating them form the crux of the program. The informational syllabus is being brought to preschools across the length and breadth of Israel. The following letter written by a grateful preschool director is one of the many received. Continue reading A Letter Meant for You, Our Dear Friends and Supporters

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The “X” Days

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Helpless to cope
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Helpless to cope

It’s heartbreaking. Every mother jokes about the first day of school being the beginning of her vacation.  Our kids, as much as we love them, are a handful and many a mother will be drained, trying to keep up with their needs during the relatively unstructured summer months.

But then there are the others. The parents who truly cannot handle even one hour without the unbearable tension that accompanies life with a special child. As chaotic as a period of unstructured days may be, the parent of an average child cannot imagine marking her calendar with x’s on the days that he will be home.  One father of a special child did just that upon the realization and dread of the block of unstructured days coming up. Unfortunately, he is one of many. Continue reading The “X” Days

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The Ezer Mizion Family

 

pr inv ty 2 pr inv ty 1It seems like it was just yesterday that we were זוכה to make both Meir’s בר מצוה and Tamar’s בת מצוה together with עזר מציון. Those two nights stand out in our minds as the most special and inspiring moments in our lives. The exciting, enthusiasm and pure joy of the saintly נשמות of the children of the Beit Chana Activity Club and B’Lev Sameach camps remains tangible and real to me. Tears swell up in my eyes every time I flip through the photo albums and recall the energy and love that I felt on those magical evenings. Those events were true שמחות and a קידוש השם, as we celebrated the milestone with the עזר מציון family.   Continue reading The Ezer Mizion Family

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Fraidy’s Best Friend: The Monkey

monkey standerOn the screen they form a row of numbers. Impersonal numbers marching down an excel sheet. But behind every number is a family. Perhaps a Mommy living under unbelievable tension, a grandma watching from the sidelines- worried, helpless or a small child expressing his frustrations at his inability to do what every other child can do in tantrum after tantrum. People living through life’s crises. Falling. Trying again.

Fraidy and her parents were one such family.  Fraidy was born a preemie. Her development was slow, as expected. At twenty seven months, she still was not walking. Due to her high muscle tone, she had trouble straightening her legs. The only way she could get around was by walking on her knees. But walking on knees is not walking. It’s difficult and does not allow her to make her way around the house with ease. Walking outdoors is completely impossible. No visit to the grocery with Mommy. No thrilling trip down the playground slide. And constantly seeing the neighbor’s children exploring the outdoors while she feels herself to be second rate. How long can a mother look at her child’s sad face without breaking down herself! Continue reading Fraidy’s Best Friend: The Monkey

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A Letter Meant for You, Our Dear Friends and Supporters

pr balloonsHello everyone,

 

What’s it like when a mazel tov is accompanied by a question mark?

My name is Sara. I have four enchanting, brilliant, beautiful sons, bursting with energy. I had thought that the first three were challenging enough, keeping me on my toes 24/7. Little B.’s’s challenges were different. I’d like to share my journey with all of you at Ezer Mizion, you who are so much a part of that journey.

When we brought him home, we had to regroup and decide how we would approach our presentation of their new brother to his older siblings. It took a lot of thought until we were finally satisfied with a plan of action. We taught his brothers to be happy and see his successes even though his failures were so glaring when compared to other babies in the neighborhood. . We told them that they’re allowed to ask and allowed to ache, and that there is much to be thankful for. The truth, brought down to their age level, was put on the table: No! We don’t know why. Yes, in the end, he will be able to walk. Yes, sometime or other he will talk. Yes, it hurts me, too. Continue reading A Letter Meant for You, Our Dear Friends and Supporters

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CP & All

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Menachem Weiss, a “special” teen with CP, reports every week to Merkaz Ha’inyanim on an angle of life that he alone can talk about

 

Shalom dear readers!

Let me tell you about a very special Shabbat with the Ezer Mizion’s Matan Club.

Navah Giloh, the director of Ezer Mizion’s Matan Club in Petach Tikvah, called to say that  they are planning a stay up in the Golan Heights. She wanted to know if I was coming. Continue reading CP & All

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He Is Disabled??!

We all have complaints. Some of us sit back with the attitude of ‘What can I do? If only I had such and such, then I would be able to accomplish so much more’. And then there are the rare few who take what they were given, little as that may be, and scale the heights. Daniel Mizrachi is one of those rare gems. Daniel introduces himself in a clip.

 

 

 

The clip begins with Daniel as an adorable 3-year-old and his promise to us all that if we believe that G-d can help us and what we want is something good, we will succeed. Today Daniel Mizrachi is twenty-four years old and gets about in a wheelchair. And how he gets about! He doesn’t just use his wheelchair to get to the local newsstand to buy a newspaper and then spend the rest of the day relaxing. Daniel wakes up each morning and says to himself, “Now why did G-d give me this new day? What can I accomplish with it?” It’s real accomplishments that Daniel is looking for… accomplishments that will help both him and others grow spiritually.
Were you born with your disability or did it happen later in life?
I was born with it. There are only five other people in the world with CP similar to what I am afflicted with. When I was one year old, we moved from Russia to Israel. I grew up in a warm, loving family. The doctors had predicted that I would never be able to go forward in life. Everyone, except my parents, thought I was retarded. People, including the doctors, spoke around me, not to me, thinking I was not able to understand a thing. I just lay there like a bump on a log. In my heart, I thought to myself: Just you wait. With my belief in G-d and my will, I’ll yet overturn worlds. If those doctors could have seen inside my head, they’d know that I was more than a bump, someone who just occupies space. Continue reading He Is Disabled??!

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Impossible Dilemma? Solved.

pr general bldg DG857322A few days ago, my younger sister got married. From the moment she got engaged, I could not get out of my mind the bitter taste of the Shabbat Sheva Berachot we celebrated a year earlier for the sister before her. I felt that I simply did not have the strength to go through another Shabbat like that.
Another Shabbat in which my autistic son Shlomo knocks tables over, stains the clothing of the kallah and the guests when he spills a bottle of cola or oily matbouha tomato salad, knocks down the mechitzah with a boom, fortunately only slightly wounding the mechutan’s foot, and screams at the top of his lungs precisely when the chatan begins to speak… Continue reading Impossible Dilemma? Solved.

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