Monday is
Good Deeds Day – 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.