Disabled Children’s Group Wins UNESCO Status
The UN Economic and Social Council has named an Israeli NGO as a “special consultant” on assisting disabled children.
The inclusion will allow Beit Issie Shapiro to “provide Israeli expertise in the field of disability rights and represent the innovations coming out of Israel,” according to the organization’s website.
The Council has 54 member states, including Egypt, Iraq, Libya and Qatar. Israel is not a member.
Beit Issie Shaipro was founded in 1980, and is now helping 30,000 children in Israel, according to its website. The organization also helps train thousands of therapists in Israel with its new therapies, and conducts research and shares best practices internationally.
The Israeli weekly Yedioth Hasharon quoted Noa Forman, an Israeli delegate to the UN on human rights issues, as describing the nomination as “a tremendous achievement.”
“The fact that an Israeli NGO made it past hurdles set by countries that are not exactly friendly toward Israel shows that no one can object to Beit Issie Shapiro’s work,” she reportedly added.
Beit Issie Shapiro has a center in Kalansawa, an Arab city in Israel. Children from the Palestinian Authority and Gaza Strip also are regularly brought to Beit Issie Shapiro for treatment, Jean Judes, the NGO’s executive director, told the Israeli weekly.
Yang Sam Ma, South Korea’s Ambassador in Israel, gave the “initial push” to have the organization registered, Forman is quoted as saying. Sam Ma has sat on the committee in the past.
“The ECOSOC family is very happy about the nomination of Beit Issie Shapiro to Special Consultative Status,” Andrei Abramov, chief of the NGO branch of ECOSOC, reportedly said.
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you move on, I wanted to ask you to support the Forward’s award-winning journalism during our High Holiday Monthly Donor Drive.
If you’ve turned to the Forward in the past 12 months to better understand the world around you, we hope you will support us with a gift now. Your support has a direct impact, giving us the resources we need to report from Israel and around the U.S., across college campuses, and wherever there is news of importance to American Jews.
Make a monthly or one-time gift and support Jewish journalism throughout 5785. The first six months of your monthly gift will be matched for twice the investment in independent Jewish journalism.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
