Each year, local familes look forward to the day when the WIZO Nachlat Yehuda Youth Village in Rishon LeZion opens its gates to the general public to celebrate the upcoming holiday of Shavuot. This year the free festive event, co-sponsored by the Rishon Lezion Municipality, took place on June 5th, World Environment Day. The day's theme was sustainability and recycling electronic waste. The partnership also included the city's sanitation division and the Meniv water company, which distributed a water bottle for environmental protection to each participant to fill up with drinking water from a Meniv water truck on site. Many visitors brought old phone chargers and other unusable electronic items with them and deposited them in the large receptacle near the entrance.
The event featured a wide variety of activities: children's shows, arts and crafts stations, workshops for buiding robots and jewelry from electronic waste, making potted pots from plastic bottles, and more.
Throughout the event, tours were given of the youth village's agro-ecology complex and animal center, all led by Nachlat Yehuda students.
Meanwhile the school's student firefighters demonstrated their fire extinguishuing equipment as proud parents took photos of their children trying on the firefighters' gear.
The event concluded with a special performance by Nachlat Yehuda's famed song & dance troupe.
"This event is just one of many fruitful collaborations between WIZO Nachlat Yehuda and the Environment and Sustainability Division of the Rishon Lezion Municipality," Galia Merom, Director of Nachlat Yehuda said. "We are so proud we have the opportunity to show off our youth village to our neighbors and it gives our students a sense of pride to serve as guides for a day."
"Rishon Lezion is a city that encourages recycling and encourages community and educational activity, so we saw fit to connect these values together on Shavuot," Rishon Lezion Mayor Raz Kinstlich said at the event. "The goal of the activity is to integrate community values, education and the environment, while empowering the city's children with creative family, environmental and educational activities and collect electronic waste from home. The cooperation of all of us to remove the electronic waste that pollutes the regular waste streams is essential for our success in living in a healthy and quality environment."
Sigal, a resident of Rishon LeZion who graduated from WIZO Nachlat Yehuda 20 years ago in 1999, came to the event with her two small children. When she studied at the Nachlat Yehuda two decades ago, was in the animal studies track and now she is working in pet therapy.
"I am very proud to be a graduate of WIZO Nachlat Yehuda," Sigal said. "They really invest in the students here - and that makes all the difference."
Photo Credits: Idan Gross
Video Credit: Kaylin Berinhout