THE JEWISH CHRONICLE FEBRUARY 2, 2012 — 3
METRO Briefly Area teens will hold a community teen fundraising dance, Saturday, Feb. 11, from 7:30 to 10:30 p.m. at the Jewish Community Center in Squirrel Hill. The Diller Teen Fellows will sponsor “Project Build,” as the event is called, to raise money for improvements to the educational system in Haiti. All proceeds from the dance will go to the Joint Distribution Committee’s Fund for Haiti, which was created in the wake of the devastating earthquake that struck Haiti Jan. 12, 2010. JDC has collected, and continues to collect, money to aid relief and reconstruction efforts for the victims. In coordination with its network of Israeli, American and other local Haitian partners on the ground, JDC is providing food, water, shelter, medical aid and education to Haitians. “Education is important to the Jewish community and to us. Change can only happen in a society where children can be educated and productive,” Diller Fellow Lizzie Shackney said in a prepared statement. “We want to help make this change in Haiti by building schools.” Some 800,000 people were displaced by the earthquake, with many of them still living in temporary housing. The Haitian government does not provide basic education for all. However, the
Haitian people value education for their children so highly they will often sacrifice everything else to send their children to school. The Diller teens have cited the need to raise awareness of Haiti’s dire situation in the Pittsburgh area. “Moses is our role model. We help when we see a need for help. We do not stand by and witness hardship, tikkun olam does not only apply to our own people, but to the entire world,” Diller Fellow Hannah Busis said in a prepared statement. The Diller Teen Fellows Program is a project of Partnership2Gether (formerly Partnership 2000), linking the communities of Pittsburgh with Karmiel/Misgav, Israel. During the 15-month program, 20 teens from Pittsburgh join with 20 from Israel to focus on leadership development, Jewish identity, Israel and the Diaspora, and the value of tikkun olam (repair of the world). The program is a partnership of the Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh, Agency for Jewish Learning and Jewish Community Center, and is funded through a grant from the Helen Diller Family Foundation, Fine Foundation and Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh. Contact diller@ajlpittsburgh.org for more information. Local Jewish agencies will compete for a $1,000 prize when the Please see Briefly, page 5.