ELEM: Youth in Distress in Israel

ELEM was founded in 1983 and since then has become a nationwide organization, specializing in identifying the hardships that characterize the daily lives of youth and young adults in distress in Israel, and in developing and implementing relevant and innovative solutions to deal with these hardships. ELEM provides support and solutions for a broad spectrum of issues facing youth, including personal crises experienced by normative adolescents, dropping out of educational frameworks, difficulties related to absorption, social problems, family problems, struggles with identity and belonging, exposure and addiction to drugs and alcohol, vagrancy, violence, sexual exploitation, sexual abuse, delinquency, prostitution and homelessness. ELEM is the address for at-risk youth and helps them find their way back into the community. 

Over the past year, ELEM, which operates in close to 40 towns across the country, met with over 35,000 adolescents, and provided continuous treatment to about 20,000 of them.