Kesher-Connecting Special Families

Kesher’s mission is to improve the lives of Israel’s 330,000 families who have children with disabilities in the belief that strong, empowered families are the best source of hope and support for their children. Kesher advances this mission through a network of services, programs and activities including grassroots programs to promote parental leadership, advocacy work amongst Israel’s policy makers to promote issues of interest to families of children with disabilities, information centers, leadership groups, courses, community building activities and other programs which help families cope with their complicated reality.


Kesher works with all families – immigrant and veteran, religious and secular, Arab and Jewish – who have children with disabilities. Indeed, one of Kesher’s priorities is our work in Israel’s Arab community where families of children with disabilities face additional challenges due to a lack of services and complex cultural issues. While Kesher has long provided services to Israel’s Arab citizens, last year Kesher’s Board of Directors made a strategic decision to expand our work in this area. To this end, Kesher has added Arab-Israelis to the Board, hired additional Arab staff, recruited more Arabic-speaking volunteers and conducted a thorough mapping of the needs of Arab communities. Kesher is in the process of creating a number of programs in response to the mapping including a leadership development course for parents and professionals from 10 northern Arab communities and a national effort to make information, advice and rights relating to children with disabilities and their families more accessible to Israel’s Arab citizens, including the development of 10 information centers specifically catering to Arabic speakers. In addition, Kesher will continue to invest in its existing programs which work in East Jerusalem and with Israel’s Bedouin population in southern Israel. This work is conducted with the assistance of Kesher’s partners including the Tzaad Iti, Sebba and Litai Foundations, the Miriam Foundation, JDC’s Mesira Center and more.