This Rosh Hashanah, help us give this fragile, life-changing programme the future it deserves.

This year, 40 students from Ben-Gurion University stepped into five of the Negev's most vulnerable spaces — a women's shelter for domestic violence survivors and their children, a girls' shelter for young women aged 13–25, a rehabilitation hostel for people rebuilding their lives after prison, a residential home for youth at risk, and a supported-housing programme for adults with disabilities.

They didn't arrive with solutions.
They arrived to listen.

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At Beit Hila, a shelter for at-risk girls, students discovered that behind the frustration of the girls who lived there was something simple and heartbreaking: they had never chosen to be there, and the space had never felt like theirs. So together, girls and students painted benches, planted a garden, and rebuilt a neglected courtyard into somewhere worth calling home.

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One young resident wrote afterwards:

"I take from this experience the confidence to express myself, the understanding that every photograph has a story, and the feeling that what I go through and what I have to say have a place and value."

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At the women's shelter, students realised that children who had lost everything familiar didn't need permanence — they needed small moments that felt like theirs. So they built a painted toy chest that could survive the winter, started a newsletter written with the children, and created an activity bank so kids could lead their own play.

At Be'eri Hostel, where residents are rebuilding their lives after incarceration, students ran workshops on CVs, digital skills, and wellbeing — practical tools for people the world often refuses to look at twice.

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The hostel's director said it best:

"The program demonstrated the power of meaningful human relationships in promoting rehabilitation, personal growth, and reintegration into the community."

Director, Be'eri Rehabilitation Hostel

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And through it all — through a year that even brought war to their doorstep, disrupting schedules and shaking everyone involved — not one part of the programme gave up. The students kept showing up. The communities kept opening their doors. And in June, it all came together in a public exhibition at Ben-Gurion University, where photographs taken by residents of shelters, hostels, and housing programmes were finally seen by hundreds of people who had never had reason to look their way before.

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One student, Noga, who worked at the Girls' Shelter, put it simply:

"I feel deeply fulfilled by the realisation that I can have such a meaningful impact on young girls' lives. This is undoubtedly an experience that will stay with me."

Noga, Student Volunteer

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This is what your gift makes possible. Not a lecture hall. Not a line in a report. A girl who feels, for the first time, that her story matters. A mother rebuilding a sense of home for her children. A man newly out of prison, given the tools — and the belief — to start again.

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Visions & Voices is only one year old.

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Its future depends entirely on what we raise right now. Please partner with the Ben-Gurion University Foundation this Rosh Hashanah, and help ensure that next year, 40 more students can knock on 40 more doors — and 40 more voices can finally be heard.

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L'shana tova u'metukah — wishing you a sweet and meaningful new year.

Harold Paisner
Chair, Ben-Gurion University Foundation