Volunteering at NNLS Asylum Seeker Drop-In Center - ANYONE WELCOME

Following our recent vote to select NNLS Asylum Seekers Drop In Centre as the Noam Charity of the Year, we invite all Noamniks to participate in the movement-wide volunteering this Sunday at St. Martin's Primary School, East Finchley.

Movement worker and movement members come together for a day of positive social action on the first Sunday of every month to volunteer with destitute asylum seekers from all over the world, seeking refuge from persecution in the UK but seriously lacking basic necessities such as food and adequate clothing.

Last month there were volunteers from Noam and Marom, Habonim, LJY Netzer and RSY Netzer and all had a great day.

Come again this month, there is something for everyone to do no matter what your experience levels..

Arrive at 1pm for the volunteers briefing and to be given a job.

Life on the Razor Edge, the Kibbutz Kestory (Human After All)

Guy Pollack, Joe Rose and Resp ‘On the Mic’ Epstein-Tasgal

As we type this, the three of us are lying on Guy and Joe’s potentially bedbug-ridden double bed. Yuk. We’ve each just received our fortnightly 150 shekel allowance because our rooms were deemed clean enough, and tonight we shall tuck in to the large amount of fruit that we obtained from the industrial-sized fridge that we share with around 350 others.

We’ve chosen to spend our final two months of the Drachim programme on Kibbutz Ketura, an American-founded kibbutz deep in the Negev desert; we’re so close to Jordan that, if it weren’t for regular army patrols and a minefield, we could easily stumble out of Israel.

Ketura, like most kibbutzim, is a socialist community where all the members and volunteers live, eat and work merrily alongside one another. Residents, both permanent and temporary, provide all the required services, such as cooking, laundry and working on the Kibbutz’s agricultural projects. Like a Peter Ebdon snooker match, we all cue up and eat in the communal dining hall and take turns to help clean it up after meals. This approach is quite different to our life in Kfar Vradim, which was set up on right-wing values, though they both share a “you can’t piss on hospitality” attitude. As soon as we arrived, we were immediately integrated into native lyfe; on our first morning we were already making our best efforts to endure the vegetables that Josh had woken up early to chop. The situation has not improved. To rake up for this, Guy and Joe have had to work even harder in the gardens.

During our time in Israel we have been introduced to the idea of rosh gadol (big head). Unlike in English, this means to think about the bigger picture and consider things other than yourself and your own possessions. Straight famine or feast, there is definitely a sense of shared Responsibility here. This can be seen, for example, when everyone contributes to setting up the dining hall for Shabbat, or when a person takes our apartments’ shared recycling bin down to the central one for the Kibbutz.

Unfortunately, not everyone here can take on any given responsibility...

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