Hot Line
1-800-358-203
One of IAIC’s first initiatives was to open our telephone hotline and individual advocacy center in order to provide direct support and referrals to services needed by immigrant youth and their families. It translates and disseminates government directives, and oversees their proper implementation throughout public institutions.
As the weakest category of students in the Israeli education system, immigrant children are the most impaired by its immense problems, resulting in a 36% dropout rate, and under-performance by those who do matriculate. External problems, such as teachers strikes and lack of funds, and internal factors, such as inattention to the special needs of immigrant students, produce a wide range of barriers to their academic and social integration. Due partially to a lack of information about their rights among immigrants and local authorities, and due partially to schools which either do not understand or respect their rights, immigrants often face a callous bureaucracy. Even when goodwill and understanding do exist, there is a shortage of educational and social professionals who speak their languages.
Staffed by dozens of lay and professional volunteers who speak six languages, the IAIC telephone hotline receives 5000 calls annually, providing information, support, and referrals to other organizations and services when necessary. With modest but critical support from the Ministry for Immigrant Absorption, the center’s services are widely publicized in Hebrew, Russian, Amharic, Spanish and French, and its activities are featured often in the press.
IAIC devotes a large amount of resources to provide answers to questions that can mean success or failure to a child’s education and absorption. Based on their experience in Ethiopia or the FSU, many immigrants cannot even conceive that they have rights to remedial tutoring, translators for parents when meeting officials, etc. Even if they lack adequate Hebrew language and Israeli social skills, the Info Hotline enables many thousands of immigrants to procure the educational and other resources they deserve.