ORT Netherlands

For over 65 years ORT Netherlands has been actively engaged in supporting projects on an international scale. World ORT’s fundraising campaigns in the twenties and thirties included Dutch Jewry, and ORT’s work in the Netherlands took firm root after the Second World War, when it formed part of ORT’s extensive training program for Displaced Persons working mostly with children – refugees and Dutch survivors, many of them orphans. Quickly the number of students grew across the Netherlands and ORT organised courses in woodwork, bookbinding and clothes cutting and sewing. For most of these early students, the Netherlands represented a short stop on their way to other destinations – mostly in Israel.

From the mid-eighties until the early nineties, ORT worked again, briefly, within Dutch institutions. World ORT helped establish a high-tech robotics laboratory for teacher training at the Technology Institute of Eindhoven and some of ORT’s course materials were translated for use within Dutch schools. In addition to training Dutch teachers, the Eindhoven centre offered courses to Jewish teachers from Eastern Europe.

Although no longer an operational center, the ORT Netherlands committee continues to fundraise within the Dutch community.

In 2011 ORT Netherlands supported some major programs including the Future Leaders Program, which focuses on nurturing the leadership potential of young people in Jewish communities across Europe and the former Soviet Union, and the Multimedia Center at the Dimcho Debeljanov Lauder-ORT Jewish School in Sofia, Bulgaria. Funds were also contributed towards a smart classroom in Kiryat Atta, Israel and a smart classroom in Odessa, Ukraine.

In 2012 ORT Netherlands will support the ‘High Five’ program in Israel as well as the ORT Lipman School in Moscow.

The ‘High Five’ program is an exciting initiative in Israel that aims to upgrade facilities at the schools in which World ORT operates. The support for the ORT Lipman School in Moscow will enable the school to continue providing state-of-the-art science and technology facilities to the students. This gives them a crucial advantage, providing them with the best available opportunities to achieve the academic success needed to move to higher education and better employment prospects.