First day of work!

Today we heard from the mayor of Yerucham where he spoke to us about the troubles facing this community. The city was established in the early 1950s and there have been difficulties trying to get people to live here because of its location. As the mayor said – ‘drive to the middle of nowhere and turn left’. The majority of the people here are new immigrants and the city is one of the poorest in the country. Yerucham is seen as a city that nobody wants to live in and a big problem is self image. To start our volunteer work we spent the day painting a bomb shelter and a number of other buildings around the neighbourhood. Despite its necessity, it is horrible to have to picture the need for bomb shelters right next to a nursery school. Anything that we were able to do to change the image of that bomb shelter by painting pictures on it can put the children at ease, and bring life and colour to the community.

One side of the bomb shelter

In the late afternoon after a long day of working we went outside the town to the makhtesh hagadol (large crater), which is unique to Israel. Despite its name, it is not the largest one in Israel. It was amazing to be able to look out in all directions and see no civilization whatsoever only a 5 minute drive from Yerucham. This really put into perspective where we were.


Today rockets were fired from the Gaza strip to Ashdod and Ra’an, the furthest north and east respectively that Hamas has ever reached with rockets. One person died in Ra’an.