How We See Our Mission

  • To play a part in alleviating food insecurity among children and youth in Jerusalem.
  • To help prevent a lack of means hindering kids from learning, something which can negatively affect their future lives.
  • To enhance awareness of the importance of nutrition among youth for their own present and future health
  • To promote coexistence and dialogue between Arabs and Jews in Jerusalem, centering round the issue of food insecurity for children and youth, a problem that exists in all parts of the city

…….AND WHY WE DO…….

Jerusalem is demographically the poorest and the most complex city in Israel.Many parents lack the means or the ability to feed their children adequately and thus send their children to school without the proper nourishment. Some are immigrants or newcomers who don’t yet understand the language or culture and are unable to comply with instructions and guidelines they receive from their children’s schools.

In the early 2000’s teachers began noticing that children in class were restless and were having trouble concentrating. Surveys all over the world had long established the link between the lack of appropriate food and the ability to concentrate.

In 2001 Marion Kunstenaar was approached by a school to pay for the lunch of one pupil for one year. Understanding the need, she established Yad Elie-an organisation of Jewish Jerusalemites dedicated to provide food to needy children in the Jerusalem school system regardless of their creed or background.

In the course of the last 16 years Yad Elie has been providing meals to a growing number of Jewish and Arab schoolchildren and youth. Since 2018 we have added children of the African Asylum seekers as we have become aware of the needs of that population. Yad Elie hopes in this way the children will do better in school and will have a better chance of making their way out of the cycle of poverty.

……WHAT WE DO……

Over the years we have literally provided well over a million meals for the children of Jerusalem. We feed hundreds of children in educational frameworks on a regular basis, daily, several times a week or weekly.Utmost care is given to provide the meals in a warm, home-like atmosphere in order to give the pupils an extra emotional support that they often crave. We currently invest in about a dozen projects, some of which (currently) are selected as priorities by the education department of the Jerusalem municipality. We hope to increase and indeed double our capacity within the next few years.