Gumat Chen has been operating social-educational frameworks that assist and support at-risk populations in Israel. The main project: a therapeutic boarding school for at-risk young women and girls provides boarding to 45 girls aged 14-18 from different areas throughout the country that have experienced severe trauma due to violence, neglect and sexual assault.
“Irit, is a sweet and special 15-year-old girl but injured from a young age in body and heart. At the tender age of 4 she was sexually assaulted by a neighbor and this abuse lasted for several years. Her body was defiled and the reality of this little girl’s life became distorted. This was only discovered after years of abuse which caused the father of the family to fall ill. The reality inside the house was complex. The girl grew up with a low self-image, abnormal behaviors and lived with a strong feeling of disgust towards herself. She believed she would be disgusting to anyone around her and developed a distorted perception of reality giving out her body to anyone who wanted it. Self-hatred and derealization from daily life lead her to academic difficulties and troubled family relationships, anger at her parents who abandoned her in the dirty hands of her abuser. Irit has developed an eating disorder and lacks self-esteem which leads her to meet boys indiscriminately, risking her own recovery. At our boarding school she receives emotional therapy and psychiatric monitoring. She is re-learning to trust the environment, trust in the team and give love to herself”
Thank you Jewish Child’s Day for making this work possible.
