By Hila Oliel

When Zehava Segev, a second grade homeroom teacher at Dekalim School on Kibbutz Hamadia, met Zvia Shelly, director of Cleveland-Beit Shean relations at Partnership 2000 in Beit Shean, the two immediately clicked and began to brainstorm.  Zehava wanted an original way the children in her class could enjoy themselves and learn new things, while Zvia wanted the same thing; but her idea was to combine international elements, or more exactly international children.  Thus the Kesharim (connections) project got started.

At the beginning of the school year, Zehava met with Nurit, a second grade teacher at Schechter School in Cleveland, in order to work towards the attainment of the project's goal, inter-community cooperation.  They decided that the students would connect to each other via letters, with Jewish holidays as the focal topic.  Each child would be assigned a pen pal with whom to exchange letters and greetings.  Last week, in honor of Tu Bishvat, the children of Dekalim School gathered at the offices of Partnership 2000 in order to see and talk with their Cleveland friends for the first time-via a satellite based videoconference.

"You can't describe the excitement and joy that erupted among the children," says Zehava.  "We prepared seriously for the encounter; the children learned Israeli and Tu Bishvat songs and rehearsed them many times over ahead of this exciting day.  It isn't every day that seven-year-olds get to experience and understand a different culture.  It's a great privilege for them.  If not for Partnership 2000 and Zvia Shelly, who is marvelous and took care of every detail, this wouldn't have been possible.  There's no doubt in my mind that this connection between the kids in my classroom and the children of Cleveland has contributed to them greatly."

At the virtual encounter, viewing and hearing each other in front of TV screens, children from the twinned classrooms sang holiday songs, individually greeted their pen pals, and, to finish things up, got up and sang Hatikva.  "I want to thank Partnership 2000 for giving us this opportunity, for each of these small children to fulfill a big dream," says Zehava, adding: "You're all terrific!"