Cuts in the budget for the years of service • A threat to their continued existence

Parents of young people before enlistment who volunteer for a year of service, recently received letters informing them about the Ministry of Education's intention to significantly cut the budget for the years of service. This means that some of the young people, who just started their year of volunteering in August 2024, will have to stop it immediately and enlist in the army. The big damage is also to the young people, who were preparing for this year and in some cases gave up military selections, and also in the peripheral settlements, where the young people do their service year for the most part.

At the beginning of 2024, the government announced its intention to cut the budget for youth movements and years of service by about 20%, but following a public protest, it was decided to change the allocation of funds in the budget of the Ministry of Education, so that there would be no harm to youth movements and years of service. According to the sending organizations (which accept the volunteers for the year of service and integrate them into volunteering) even though they were told that the budget would not be cut, they discovered a few weeks ago that a cut of about 25% was expected even though they asked to increase the budget due to the expenses related to the war.

A year of service in Israel

A year of service is a project during which young people, who have completed the twelfth grade, volunteer for a year in the community and then enlist in the army. There are several organizations that are responsible for the year of service, among them the youth movements. , whose volunteers are called Shinshinin.

Scout CEO Elad Sandrovich: "Since the war, the year of service is even more significant and now it will hurt irreparably"

Scouts CEO Elad Sandrovich explains the situation to the Ministry of Education: "The Scouts movement is one of the bodies that sends out the year of service. There are 20 such bodies. The volunteers work in a wide variety of volunteering activities, within schools, youth movements, boarding schools, and non-formal education frameworks. In the last year since the war started, they have also worked with evacuees. Our scouts had 150 Shinshinin, who volunteered at the hotels in Eilat with the evacuated youth. There was a permanent staff here, who supported the evacuated youth and did not change. We now also have a commune with Kfar Gaza, a commune of Kiryat Shmona, which works in Tel Aviv and Tiberias.

We do very significant work with the evacuated youth. The establishment of the service year has not changed in recent years and within the framework of the Ministry of Education distributed 67 million NIS. This year they only provided 50 million NIS. We received a promise from the Minister of Education Yoav Kish at the beginning of the year that there would be no cut in the budget for the years of service and that budget sources would be found. We were waiting to see it happen in practice. We started a new cycle of a service year in the second week of August, and we see that the money is not coming in. We started hearing from the Ministry of Education that the Ministry of Finance is not keeping its promises and vice versa.

We are after a year in which we continued to conduct ourselves as usual, even though we did not receive the entire budget. It should also be understood that this year there are more shinshinin than last year and the Ministry of Education still does not update the budget according to how many volunteers there are. In the end, all the sending bodies united and sent a letter to the Ministry of Education. We have not received a response to the letter. We saw a reference in the media, that there would be no cut, but we need something written. We are approaching the end of the year. This is a super significant injury.

There are 2,360 Shinshins in the country. The budget is used for us to rent houses for the Shinshins and to give a living allowance. We contacted the parents this week and informed them that we have a problem. We are now fighting so as not to harm the volunteers who are doing holy work."

The letter to the Ministry of Education: "Stopping the activities of the National Service volunteers will harm the children's education"

The letter to the Minister of Education is signed by all the sending organizations. In the letter, the managements of the organizations explain that if the cut in the volunteer budget is indeed carried out, the activity of many volunteers will stop immediately and the education of tens of thousands of children and youth in Israel will be severely damaged.

"In order to meet all the costs required to operate the service year within the existing scope, it is necessary to increase the budget for the service year regulation to 70 million NIS immediately, as early as 2024. The budget is needed to respond to the increase in the number of NIS, the increase in current operating costs, and the large resources that the bodies have invested in the past year due to the need to make adjustments in light of the ongoing war. To our astonishment, not only is the state not increasing the budget as required, but we are once again facing a sharp cut in the budget for the volunteer year of service from NIS 67 million in 2023 to NIS 50 million in 2024.

To the extent that the cut remains in place, we will be forced to close dozens of NIS communes and cancel all the educational activities derived from it. This is a fatal damage to the education of tens of thousands of children and teenagers in Israel, especially in the social and geographic periphery, in the evacuated settlements and other populations that need it the most."

The letter to parents: "If there is a cut, after the holidays 25% of the volunteers will be forced to finish their duties"

Parents of young people before enlistment, who are currently doing a year of service, received a letter from the Director of the Fulfillment Department Amit Even and the Chairman of the Fulfillment Committee Elder Agami in the Scouts informing them about the expected cut in the budget for the years of service. In the letter they explain that the Scouts management is in negotiations with the Ministry of Education in order for the Ministry of Education will complete the support budget for the years of service, but if the move does not help, after the holidays 25% of the volunteers for the years of service will be forced to immediately end the year of service.

"Unfortunately, we have to bring to your attention that the Ministry of Education has decided to cut about a quarter of the support budget for the year of service for this year. We have been in an ongoing dialogue with the Ministry of Education regarding the completion of the budget for many months, and despite the promises made by the Ministers of Education and Finance, as of this writing , 25% of the support budget is still missing. If the budget is not completed until after the holidays, all the sending organizations will be forced to immediately end the service year of 25% of the active service year volunteers in Israel The latter and are assigned to national and important tasks throughout the country."

Tami Handelman ben Shimon: It is not possible that after all my son's investment, his volunteering will stop after two months

"The Ministry of Education has decided that the year of service before military service is not important enough, so it is cutting the budget for the years of service by a quarter, which means closing frameworks," says Tami Handelman Ben Shimon, Haifa, whose son is currently doing a year of service, "My son started a year of service in the nuclear Scouts this year in Katsrin. 3 times he works in Katsrin's schools and helps the educational staff, two days a week in the welfare club and the rest of the week he helps lead the Amichai tribe of the Scouts movement, a guide, center, escort and operator of an open tribe in the evenings to prevent wandering.

If he finishes his service year there, beyond contributing to the community he will be a better citizen, more socially aware, more valuable and certainly independent and mature. My son chose to give another year to the community out of a place of values ​​and also as a continuation of the youth movement, which he was in for many years. Along with this, all of his selections for elite units were stopped by the army because he received a draft (deferral of service), therefore the termination of the service year will prevent him from selections, which were supposed to be this year and he will instead enlist in the right place for him and where his contribution will be maximal, as happened to many friends of the year of service this year and prep schools, which stopped their service year in March/April due to the needs of the IDF.

This year my son went through quite a few selection days for the service year and preparation seminars, he gave many of his days for his acceptance to the service year, so the disappointment that the service year may end in the middle is even greater."

The Ministry of Education: "In 2024, the budget intended for Shinshinin will be similar to the budget of 2023"

The Ministry of Education stated that the Ministry sees great importance in a year of volunteering for the community. It was also reported that at the end of the 2024 budget year, the budget intended for the Shinshins will be similar to the 2023 budget.