To commemorate Jewish Disabilities Awareness month, The Mitzvah Bowl would love to hear from you with mitzvah project ideas for special needs students. Please comment below!
Many congregations are adapting their bar and bat Mitzvah programs to meet the needs of an ever-growing population; students with special needs (i.e. disabilities, health-related issues, learning difficulties). Several examples of this include torah portions becoming abbreviated, adaptive equipment being utilized, Hebrew transliterated to English and torah services moved to a smaller chapel to limit background noise.
One key element to a bar/bat mitzvah student includes the mitzvah project. However, when a student with special needs is preparing for their big day, finding a mitzvah project may be challenging depending on their individual difficulties.
A few projects The Mitzvah Bowl staff has encountered include an Asperger’s teen helping at a therapeutic equestrian facility, a child with Juvenile Diabetes creating a fundraising campaign to help his cause and a mitzvah student with ADHD/anxiety who helped grow a community garden last spring.
What are your ideas or experiences? Please comment below.
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