Regeneration 2000
By far the largest proportion of the estimated two million Jewish people in the CIS and Baltic States is composed of Jews who are assimilated. These are people who do not participate in any of the programmes of the various Jewish organisations active in the region. Estimates put the number in this category at around 1.5 million. The task of regenerating the Jewish communities shattered by decades of communist rule is a principal aim of Regeneration 2000.
ORT programmes in the CIS and Baltic States have shown that, without doubt, Jewish schools provide a highly effective channel through which we can help to rebuild and strengthen communities. The success of this strategy will depend upon ORT being able to ensure that Jewish schools in the region become the schools of choice for the parents of Jewish children. In the new market-driven economy in the CIS, Jewish schools find themselves in keen competition with other schools to attract students. Parents are exercising their choice through seeking out those schools able to provide the best opportunities for success. It is only by precisely defining and catering for the needs and demands of students and their parents that Jewish schools can hope to succeed.
In the first phase of Regeneration 2000, ORT managed to show that its schools in the CIS were setting the best standards.
The objectives of Regeneration 2000 were to
- Create successful and attractive Jewish schools built upon delivering high quality education that provided their graduates with a real competitive advantage when seeking higher vocational education and opportunities for employment.
- Provide a channel and focal point in Jewish communities through which we can re-establish and rebuild local Jewish communities.
ORT had achieved these objectives by undertaking a programme that included a major upgrading of the school's resources.
ORT’s ambitious Regeneration 2000 project resulted in new schools and technology centers and ORT-CIS has grown from a few computer labs and several hundred students in the early 1990s to more than 20,000 students throughout the CIS in early 2003. As a result, tens of thousands of students of all ages have received improved basic education, and valuable professional and technical training. The result is a network of 39 training centers in Russia, Ukraine, Moldova, Belarus, Latvia, and Lithuania sharing a wealth of knowledge and experience, with centralized staff and curriculum development systems, but with the skilled local presence to innovate in tackling community specific issues.
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ORT Technology Center at Jewish school “Mishpahteinu”
Moscow Center of Education # 1311 “Techiya” (Lipman School)
ORT Technology Center at Samara Secondary school #42
Technology Lyceum, Kiev
ORT Technology Center at Jewish secondary school #144 in Dnepropetrovsk
ORT Technology Lyceum named after B.Z.Herzl
