Today children from the "Educating for Excellence" programme joined children of the Maccabi Tel Aviv Youth Division at a joint practice at the Kiryat Shalom training ground
As part of Maccabi Tel Aviv Football Club's ongoing involvement in community affairs, children from the "Educating for Excellence" programme were today invited to join children of the Maccabi Tel Aviv Youth Division at a joint practice at the Kiryat Shalom training ground. "Educating for Excellence" is an organisation established for the purpose of promoting equal opportunity in education, with a view to narrowing the enormous social and economic gaps that exist within Israeli society. The project was initiated in the realisation that gifted children living in Israel’s disadvantaged neighbourhoods, who achieve so well in their first years at primary school, must at the same time cope with considerable economic, social and family-related difficulties. As a result they often do not have access to the kind of support and enrichment that would enable them to realise their potential.
Participating in today's joint practice with children of the "Educating for Excellence" programme were the children of the Youth Division's Under-10 Team South. The participating children of the "Educating for Excellence" programme are all residents of Tel Aviv's Kiryat Shalom neighbourhood, located directly across from Maccabi Tel Aviv's Kiryat Shalom training ground to which it lent its name. The children began with a joint warm-up, after which they broke up into mixed groups to play practice games at the training ground's synthetic pitch. For the children of "Educating for Excellence", this was their first opportunity to attend a football practice of this kind, led by the head coach of Maccabi's Under-10 Team South, Asaf Profeta.
In the course of this season, the "Educating for Excellence" children will be participating in a further five practice sessions together with the children of Maccabi Tel Aviv's Youth Division. In March and April fellow participants will also be the club's Under-10 Team South but in March they'll train with the Under-11 Team South as well. In May there will be two joint practices with the club's Under-12 Team South.
In addition to practices, children of the "Educating for Excellence" programme are participating in a variety of special events held at the Maccabi Tel Aviv Youth Division, such as the candle-lighting ceremony that was held during the Jewish festival of Hanukkah last December and in various lectures that are held at the Youth Division centre. They will also participate in the special Bar Mitzvah ceremony and trip held for the Division's children reaching their thirteenth birthday, the traditional age for Jewish children to celebrate this festive event.
