Dr. Granit Almog- Bareket

Director, Mandel Graduate Unit and Founder of "Healing with Hope"

Cohort 14 Mandel School for Educational Leadership 

Prior to Granit's participation in the Mandel School for Educational Leadership as a fellow, she has been a teacher for 14 years and was the coordinator of the Educational Policy track at the Hebrew University School of Education. During her Mandel fellowship, she has founded an organization- "Healing with Hope"- which includes dozens of volunteers, and provides assistance and services to hospitalized children. 

Taking the rights of sick children seriously
"Healing with Hope" is a social initiative founded by Granit in 2006. Through "Healing with Hope", Granit has organized an entire system of volunteers and assured that the hospital allocates time and space for incorporating activities into the department’s daily schedule.
In this initiative, "Healing with Hope", Granit and the pediatrics ward of Hadassah Hospitals (and soon additional hospitals) organize various activities such as music and art therapy, educational support through private tutoring, help staying in touch with friends, borrowing books and personal computers. Several times a month Granit, with her many volunteers, organizes big events at the hospitals: Once, for instance, she brought a known comedean. Another time the Israel Prize winner, actress Gila Almagor, visited the children and brought a smile to their faces. Recently, the entire soccer team Beitar Jerusalem came to visit the children- fulfilling a sick child's dream to meet the soccer players... and many more events.  
“An initiative was born here … to connect people who care. People who are willing to do something for sick children—not in the financial sense, but in the sense of giving. People who are willing to give of themselves, to make kids active, and to help out,” Granit said in a radio interview about the initiative.

People might think that orchestrating such an initiative takes a full time job... but for Granit, "Healing with Hope"  is another project amongst her many other activities as development manager of the MLI Graduates Unit.
 
Only the beginning
This project draws the attention of people, and many call to express their desire to join and assist. During the radio broadcast that was dedicated to the "Healing with Hope" initiative, Professor Dan Engelhard, Head of the Pediatrics ward at Hadassah Hospital, expressed his appreciation, and stated that: "Radio Jerusalem, Granit Almog-Bareket and The Mandel Leadership Institute deserve a big thank you!"

Now that "Healing with Hope" is up and running, Granit is devoted to recruiting the community to this endeavor and to expanding this local initiative to other hospitals around Jerusalem and Israel. “As a fellow at the Mandel School for Educational Leadership of the Mandel Leadership Institute,” she states, “I had the time, the resources and the ability to move important initiatives forward."