Original source: Article published in The Jerusalem Post – by Steve Linde
The Jerusalem-based OneFamily Foundation is “the premier national organization that rehabilitates, reintegrates and rebuilds the lives of Israel’s thousands of victims of terror attacks.”
The Jerusalem Post Diplomatic Conference Award 2016, for “exceptional work with victims of terror and their families”, will be presented to OneFamily co-founders Marc and Chantal Belzberg and their daughter Michal who at 12 years old, was the catalyst behind the founding of OneFamily.
The Jerusalem-based OneFamily Foundation is “the premier national organization that rehabilitates, reintegrates and rebuilds the lives of Israel’s thousands of victims of terror attacks.”
“OneFamily works to help victims of terror return to normal life – completely and as quickly as possible,” Chantal Belzberg, who also serves as the organization’s CEO, told the Post. “We do it primarily by helping them financially, socially, emotionally and legally.
Most importantly, Belzberg said, OneFamily “assigns each person a “professional friend”, a professional who is also a friend, to help them receive what they deserve from the Government and to navigate with them the medical options to best treat their injuries. The other One- Family innovation, derived from our experience, is facilitating victims of a similar tragedy to become friends with each other, through OneFamily weekend retreats with hundreds of victims at a time.
Eden Dadon, 15, was burned over 100% of her body, in a suicide bus bombing on April 18th, this year.
OneFamily gave the Dadon’s monthly financial support to allow her single mother to leave her job and stay at her daughter’s bedside. Her teachers said she needed home tutoring to catch up. OneFamily provided that. Eden’s Doctors said she needed special equipment for her rehabilitation.
OneFamily purchased it for her. OneFamily sent others who recovered from severe burns to show her there is light at the end of the tunnel. And of course, a OneFamily “Professional Friend” has escorted Eden personally through her ordeal and will stay with her until her complete recovery.
Chaim Winternitz, 28, and his brother-in-law, Menachem (Mendy) Farkash, 24, credited OneFamily for helping to get them back on their feet after they were seriously injured wounded in the legs in the Brussels Airport bombing on March 22.
“OneFamily’s representatives have visited us regularly and helped us financially,” said Farkash. “They really understood our pain.”
“The name ‘OneFamily’ is most appropriate,” added Winternitz. “They made us feel like we are part of their family.”
As the phenomenon of terrorism spreads across the world, Belzberg said, there is a great deal other countries can learn from Israel in general, and particularly One Family, which has 15 years of experience working “to rehabilitate and empower Israel’s victims of terror.”
“The OneFamily Foundation, with its centers around the country, is the only organization in the world that has developed a complete echo system for the very personalized care of victims of terror and war, for every consequence of terror provided to every person in Israel, of every faith and color, indiscriminately,” Belzberg said. “I thank The Jerusalem Post and all who produce the newspaper for choosing this award of recognition to the OneFamily Foundation.”
“This comprehensive solution, combining many fields of expertise, has been developed over 15 years of tortuous experience, aiding over 10,000 individual victims of terror,” she said.
“OneFamily has given Israel a new invention to its name, a new solution to a growing worldwide problem, a proven technique to share with the world, to make the world a better place.”
“As the founder of OneFamily, I am proud to have had an impact on the resilience of the people of this country and look forward to being a light unto the nations of the world,” she added.
