For the eighth year, a delegation from the Israel Tennis & Education Centers (ITEC) paid a visit to the Wycliffe Golf & Country Club on Thursday, March 13.
The purpose of the visit was to showcase how tennis is being successfully used to bridge gaps between children of different backgrounds in Israel, while promoting diversity, enhancing life skills, empowering people, improving communication and transforming lives among the different groups of people that live in Israel.
Israel is populated by Jews, Muslim Arabs, Christian Arabs, Bedouins, Druze and refugees from many countries around the world, such as Nigeria, Morocco, Kenya, Ukraine and Russia.
In a nutshell, the ITEC model works and has been working since the first ITEC facility opened in 1976.
According to Yoni Yair, ITEC’s U.S.-based senior vice president of development, the 24 ITEC facilities in Israel are making a profound and positive difference in the lives of thousands of children. The 24 ITEC facilities are intentionally placed in some of the country’s most challenged geographic locations so that the children most in need of ITEC’s services are living a short distance from the nearest ITEC facility.
“We work with 20,000 children a year in Israel, and ITEC is the largest social services program in Israel,” said Yair, who is a by-product of the ITEC experience back in the 1970s. “Children are spending seven, eight or nine hours a day at one of the many ITEC facilities. There, the children are taught life values, they get a chance to do their homework, they are provided a hot meal, and they also learn how to play tennis alongside other Israeli children.”
What’s special about ITEC is that children of all races, nationalities and faiths are spending time at ITEC centers. According to Yair, by spending so much time together, the Israeli children from different backgrounds actually learn to like each other and develop lasting friendships.
“At ITEC, we are creating the future leaders of Israel,” Yair said. “In many respects, ITEC is the beautiful face of Israel.”
A focal point of this tennis-themed event was the chance to watch tennis being played by the ITEC delegation on Wycliffe’s center court. The series of forehands, backhands, volleys, drop shots and overhead smashes was impressive and entertaining for the hundreds of people on hand to watch, including Wellington Mayor Michael Napoleone.
One of the young and talented ITEC ambassadors was 12-year-old Miley Svidinsky. Her life has been transformed for the better because of the existence of what ITEC has to offer.
“I love being at my tennis center in Ashkelon. We live in the south near the Gaza Strip, and the tennis center is a safe place for me. I have many friends, and the coaches are like my family. I dream to represent Israel and be a top player in the world,” Svidinsky said.
A reception was held afterward inside the clubhouse of the Wycliffe Golf & Country Club so that the ITEC ambassadors could meet and mingle with those in attendance, many of whom were Wycliffe residents.
For more information about the ITEC program, visit www.itecenters.org.
