Who we are
Pleased to meet you
Bino Guidance Center
he Bino Center was established by the Jerusalem Municipality with the aim of locating boys and girls on the dropout spectrum and providing them with a professional and dedicated response.
The ‘Bino’ NPO is deployed throughout the city and operates expert field coordinators who meet the boys/girls in the study settings, on the streets, in the fast-food stands, and in the bustling city squares and makes initial contact with them.
After making contact (intake) and expression of a desire on the part of the boy/girl and the parents, the field coordinators map the situation of each boy and girl and send an orderly report to professionals. The latter prepare for each boy/girl an individual treatment plan to suit their specific situation and the personal needs of each and every one.
The Bino Center’s uniqueness
lies in providing a holistic response to every problem. No more run-around between personal guide, psychologist, emotional support person, field coordinator at the yeshiva, placement expert, vocational training expert, and so on; at Bino, all professionals are consolidated under one roof.
The boy’s or girl’s personal guide receives regular reports every week from the various treatment points. Adjustment of data assists in fine tuning the response required from time to time, until the end of the period of coping and getting on the right track with G-d’s help.
The ‘Bino’ association believes that every boy and girl of Jerusalem has a huge potential for success, and all that is needed to reach it is a professional adult who believes in him/her.
Therefore,
The center’s team has made it its motto the right to provide immediate assistance to every applicant. The assistance provided is professional and comprehensive – designed to give the youth the best future, regardless of his past or current situation. The association has field staff who are experts in placement in the frameworks, provided that the situation allows it, along with options for financing vocational studies for boys who require it.
Our vision:
To reach every coping boy and girl from the ultra-orthodox (Haredi) sector
in Jerusalem and provide them with a comprehensive and tailored spiritual, emotional, and social response.
We at the center believe that through hope,
listening, tailored guidance and counseling for teenagers and their parents –
it is possible to help every boy and girl realize their abilities
and escape the cycle of distress.
Eliran Somekh
Bino CEO
Qualifications
- Certified Advanced Teaching Degree with Major in Special Education.
- B.A. in Education and Social Sciences.
- M.A. in Management & Organization of Education Systems.
Specialization in the field
Eighteen years of experience in both formal and informal education. Among other positions, he served as a counselor for at-risk youth, homeroom teacher and superintendent at ultra-Orthodox junior schools, coordinator for educational pedagogical programs, manager of a youth department in ultra-Orthodox neighborhoods in Jerusalem, manager of educational projects in informal education, and lecturer on at-risk youth.
My creed
When the Bino Center was established, its purpose was one: to apply innovative work methods in the treatment of at-risk youth. It was with this guideline that we set out and have been working with for some time – with the aim of providing a response to struggling youth (both boys and girls in separate centers) and creating a supportive treatment sequence that will enable the youth to make progress over time.
Method of work
In order to illustrate the method of work applied at the ‘Bino’ center, we shall take a classic case of someone who turns to it. Yos is a former Yeshiva student, a ‘disconnected’ youth – neither diagnosed nor treated at present. Yos fills his day with negative thrills; he is anti-establishment, works at a small grocery store and causes discouragement to the people around him (unfortunately, including his parents).
When our coordinator located Yos and offered him the chance to learn a profession free of charge and benefit from a nurturing and enjoyable environment, he ignored him. It was only after many weeks of repeated attempts that Yos agreed to come and check the possibility, if only to get the bothersome coordinator off his back.
He looked and was stricken…
Later on, when the relationship with Yos became closer, the mentor assigned to him by the coordinator asked him if anyone had helped him the first time he dropped out of school. “Sure”, Yos said, “a few people were really there for me; however, no one stayed with me in the days following my being accepted into the framework.” No one bothered to guide me through the difficulties of the yeshiva, and no one thought of providing me alternative plans for the evening. Every evening I returned to the streets, so it’s no wonder I was soon kicked out of the second framework adapted for me. At the third yeshiva, I didn’t even last a week.”
Yos is typical; guys like him fill the streets of Jerusalem and Israel. They ‘sit on the rails’, gather in the squares and, deep within themselves, hope that someone will see their need and give them a series of responses.
Not just a response
but a sequence
When laying the groundwork for establishing the ‘Bino’ center, we realized that with struggling young men it is impossible to solve specific problems, it is not a matter of ‘finding them a framework’, ‘guiding them in the yeshiva’ or ‘closing the gap with them’. They require a comprehensive and continuous response encompassing a variety of areas, and it was this need that we addressed.
The new Bino Guidance Center is currently under construction:
