CJP funds a wide variety of initiatives through the Dnepropetrovsk Kehillah Project to promote humanitarian assistance and exchange programs between Boston and Dnepopetrovsk. Here are just a few of our recent projects:

Women's Health Clinic
Pediatric Clinic
Jewish Big Brothers Big Sister Program
The Special Needs Initiative
Education and Community Outreach Programs
Holocaust Education Project
Bureau of Jewish Education's Havayah Experience
Beit Baruch Elderly Project


Women's Health Clinic
Great strides continue to be made in the Corky Ribakoff Women's Health Clinic, a non-sectarian clinic funded in part by Boston philanthropists Charles and Patti Ribakoff and headed by Dr. Benjamin Sachs. This clinic has become the premier women's health clinic in the Ukraine, treating thousands of women and working to prevent numerous cancers that affect women today. Ukrainian doctors are regularly trained by Boston physicians and have created a new standard for public health clinics in the Ukraine and throughout the former Soviet Union.

Pediatric Clinic
The clinic recently received immunizations through the efforts of Patti Ribakoff, with donations from the Merck Foundation. Thousands of Ukrainian children have already benefited from the services of this clinic, headed by Boston's Dr. David Link. A program is underway for 10,000 children to receive immunizations over the next several years that will help prevent infectious diseases.

Jewish Big Brother Big Sister Program
This program, started by Boston's JBBBS Executive Director Harvey Lowell, has trained countless Dnepropetrovsk professionals. They have recently helped recruit volunteers to create twenty five matches between "bigs and littles" in Dnepropetrovsk, now actively involved in caring relationships that are sorely needed in the Jewish community due to many single-family homes.

The Special Needs Initiative
This program, administered through Boston's Jewish Family & Children's Service (JF & CS), provides care and support of disabled children in Dnepropetrovsk and the region. This work is made possible through the vision and efforts of lay leaders, Dr. Judith Wolf and Sue Wolf-Fordham. Through the Special Needs Initiative the Educational Resource Center (ERC) at Bet Hana's Teacher College was established to care for and support disabled children and their families. The Center has also become a model for inclusivity, involving disabled children in the Jewish school and in community events. In addition, the ERC advocates for the children and their families. CJP's Women's Division donated customized wheelchairs, a van to transport the children to the city's events and is currently overseeing the building of an adapted playground on the Bet Hana premises in Dnepropetrovsk.

Education and Community Outreach Programs
This project promotes diverse opportunities for educational and cultural exchanges between teachers and students of Dnepropetrovsk Jewish Day School and schools in three smaller Jewish communities in the region (Dneprodzherzhinsk, Pavlograd and Novomoskovsk) with Boston-area Hebrew schools and Jewish day schools. A Bureau of Jewish Education (BJE) curriculum "Connecting Communities", assists teachers and students in learning about the sister city relationship and Dnepropetrovsk's rich Jewish past and its current revival of Jewish life. The curriculum also fosters ongoing exchanges between schools, classes, and teachers. A Boston Kehillah Room opened this year in the Dnepropetrovsk Jewish Day School and houses the educational exchanges between them. Staff regularly involves community groups in Mitzvah and Tzedakah projects.

Holocaust Education Project
The newest initiative, a collaboration between JCRC's Kehillah Project, South Area Schecter Day School's L'Chaim Project, and Facing History and Ourselves will expand Holocaust education in our three partnered communities through interviews with Holocaust survivors. This initiative ensures that students pass on their important lessons, develops young Jewish leaders sensitive to social justice issues and our Jewish past, and builds on the tri-sister city connection, providing wider participation between Boston, Haifa, and Dnepropetrovsk. A book in Hebrew, English, and Russian will be published in spring 2004.

Bureau of Jewish Education's Havayah Experience
In its eighth year, teens from Boston and Haifa are trained in leadership skills and work together to provide a week-long winter camp experience in Dnepropetrovsk that shares Jewish cultural, educational, and social activities. Havayah, which is administered by Boston's Bureau of Jewish Education (BJE) promotes leadership and enriches issues of Jewish identity and commitment to Israel and world Jewry. Havayah students then return and work in Kehillah project classrooms to enrich classroom experiences and work in Kehillah project activities in Boston.

Beit Baruch Elderly Project
A cooperative effort between JCRC with two of Boston's leading agencies that serve the elderly – the Hebrew Rehabilitation Center for the Aged and Jewish Community Housing for the Elderly – will assist the newly opened Beit Baruch Assisted living Facility in Dnepropetrovsk. The three agencies are cooperating to provide training for a delegation of Beit Baruch staff at HRCA and JCHE in Boston. HRCA will provide on-site training with geriatric staff in multi-disciplinary fields for extensive training; JCHE and HRCA housing sites will also offer training that emphasizes "aging in place" issues for independent elderly and provide ideas for creating community within an assisted living facility.