We asked ELEM Israel’s vice CEO about what the youth in Israel experienced during COVID. Especially when forced to study remotely.
“The youth population was the most invisible population during the pandemic. Still is. Adolescence is the time in youths’ lives when they try to step out, to pave their own way in the world, and suddenly they were forced to stay home and couldn’t leave. That’s very counterintuitive to everything a youth needs.”
“Remote learning made things even worse for them, both mentally and in terms of education. The physical distance led many students to fall between the cracks. It’s something we wish parents realized. It’s very hard to expect kids to behave normally when the routine is spending 8 hours a day in Zoom.”
“Every parent had to pay attention to their child’s new daily routine and see if there were extreme changes in behaviors. These changes could’ve manifested as being completely zoned out from the remote learning, or uncommunicative with friends. It could’ve been roaming the streets for hours on end, or surfing the web and finding some disturbing pages they never visited before. These were, and still are, things that require our attention. We have to be attentive.”
We’ve seen so many concerning cases since the beginning of the pandemic, and a lot of the challenges are here to stay. The aftermath can be devastating, but ELEM is here, constantly thinking of new ways to help, and paying attention to the youth.
To learn more about our work during COVID, visit www.elem.org/corona
