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"We usually think about all the youth we didn’t meet today, about the sense of abandonment—about the insult. They were promised quiet, they were promised that by now, "everything is okay," says Michal Elkayam, a social worker and the manager of the Holistic Model of ELEM in Kiryat Shmona, in a heartbreaking letter about the inconceivable reality of the youth in a city under non-stop fire. Through the personal stories of the youth she meets, she highlights the urgent need for long-term rehabilitation for the North. "When adults' trust has undergone such a major upheaval, it will take time for our outstretched hand as youth workers to meet the hand seeking theirs," she says.

PHOTO CAPTIONS
Michal, a social worker in Kiryat Shmona, on the reality of the youth in the city:

Yair (pseudonym) has to calm his mother down. She is anxious. He doesn't join the class Zooms and isn't in touch with any friends. Every so often, he records a message for his mother: "Don't worry, those are our booms' — and says 'Mommy' after the louder booms.

We met Shahar (pseudonym) at his mother’s business. He has to work to take care of her, and someone has to bring money into the home; the city is desolate. When the "booms" grew stronger, he asked for a ride home. We didn't make it to the house he only returned to a few months ago, but we did make it to the shelter.

Shira (pseudonym) says that because her sister is disabled, they don't have enough time to get down to the shelter, so she sleeps with her mother and her sister in the shelter. We really want to come to her, but the tension is intensifying. We hope to manage to reach her another day.

Instead of being at home, they are on the floor of the neighborhood shelter; the feeling of abandonment, the budgets that are running out. Kiryat Shmona needs a stable, promising, and gradual rehabilitation. Our social responsibility is to understand that a safe space is not built in a single day.