background

In recent years, youth at risk who have been rejected by the religious community and ostracized by their families, roam the streets and have no place to turn to. Local municipality and neighborhood social workers who identify runaway, delinquent religious youth refer them to the organization. If the program did not exist, youth at risk from religious backgrounds who step outside their framework would fall hard into drugs, alcohol and other criminal activities. They do not have any place to go for help. Their parents do not understand their problems.

Unlike in the secular community, where youth at risk have friends and others they can turn to for help. Once religious youth leave their educational framework (yeshiva or ulpana), they are completely shunned socially. No one wants anything to do with them, and thus their deterioration is much more rapid. Traditional institutions face grave difficulties in coping with the problem.