The youth of the "Pinat Hanoar" Center of Kiryat Moshe, Rehovot are creating a beautiful garden adjacent to the Center. The site is currently being prepared and landscaped with great precision, and should be complete by the beginning of next year.

"Pinat Hanoar" is a social and educational treatment center that offers a variety of services for the adolescents in Kiryat Moshe. Pinat Hanoar helps nearly 300 local youth. The youth come to the Center for social activities, mentoring, health and sex education and many more areas of personal enrichment.

UJA Federation of Greater Toronto was a key partner in the establishing "Pinat Hanoar" in Kiryat Moshe, recognizing that the professionals and volunteers in the program had the potential to help children and teens from the neighborhood get their lives back on track. The success of the program is so great that the director has already presented the model before numerous Knesset committees and professionals working with youth in various frameworks and organizations throughout Israel.

The Israel Association of Landscaping and Gardens, the Rehovot Municipal Division of Gardens, and many professional gardeners and landscape artists all devoted their time and skills to help the local youth create the new garden. The ELEM organization for at-risk youth provided support, and many of its volunteers "got their hands dirty" -- literally! – by taking a hands-on role.

The youth worked in groups along with the volunteers to clear the land, lay the pathways, place the irrigation system and plant the garden. They have already established a program to maintain the garden. Previously been both a danger and an eyesore, overrun with glass, rocks and overgrown weeds, the garden has now become a place of beauty and tranquility. It provides a place for the youth to meet in a beautiful natural setting that promotes peaceful dialogue.

Hezi Mola , chair of the Israel Association of Landscaping and Gardens sees the Garden as a means to help the youth reconnect with cultural roots of the Ethiopian immigrant community, and as a model to promote pride and caring about the environs in which they live. He believes the project will encourage local residents to keep their own private yards clean and well-maintained. As a result, his association intends to duplicate this program in other disadvantaged neighborhoods throughout Israel.