On the day members of the public are asked to perform a good deed, the president chooses to work with Shalva.
By GREER FAY CASHMANPeres Shalva band(photo credit: Yair Chovav)
Monday is – a day in which members of the public are asked to perform at least one good deed on behalf of another individual or a group. President Shimon Peres has chosen to do his good deed for the day at Shalva, the Jerusalem-based association for mentally and physically challenged children.The president is always accompanied on his travels by members of his staff, but on this occasion, Efrat Duvdevani, the director-general of the President’s Bureau, has decided that all the staff will be involved in doing good deeds for these special-needs children who cannot experience all the activities and adventures that children who have minimal or no developmental problems can enjoy.The president and his staff will man colorful stalls on behalf of the Shalva children, and will thus officially open Good Deeds Day. The president himself will man a candy stall, and will also join the children in painting a mural.This is not his first encounter with special-needs children, many of whom have been his guests at the President’s Residence.Peres has a special rapport with children, and they with him.His current major interest is in research of the brain in the hope that at some time in the not-too-distant future the problems of children with special needs will be detected and treated when they are still in the womb so that they can be born mentally and physically fit and healthy.The Shalva children are encouraged to reach whatever potential they have, including their musical potential, and some, with the assistance of Kalman Samuels, the founder and director of Shalva, will sing to the president and his staff, to the many volunteers who come to the capital’s Har Nof neighborhood to bring joy into the lives of the children and to the professionals who tend to the children on a daily basis.When they couldn’t find the right environment for their son Yossi, Kalman and Malki Samuels decided to create one for him and for other children whose needs could not be met in a regular kindergarten or classroom.In creating a caring place for their son, they opened the doors for scores of other parents whose children need special care.
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