Piamenta Bilha
Organization: Kav-Or
Year Founded: 1993
Country: Israel
Website: www.kavor.org.il
Geographic Area of Impact: .
Model: Leveraged Non-Profit
Focus: Education.
Social Entrepreneur of the Year, Israel, 2007 The Innovation Using computers and tailored software for distance learning can provide hospitalized children with education, companionship, and opportunities to play. Having classes through the Kav-Or website, supervised by teachers and volunteers, Kav-Or provides appropriate and continuous learning while the children are absent from school. Through the online forums and chat rooms, the website brings together children who are hospitalized in all hospitals across Israel. The program evolved through the needs that arose over time. For example, Kav-Or had developed a program for obese children teaching them about nutrition, health, and psychological support to be used at a new and unique sport therapy centre planned be launched in a few months within Meir Hospital in Kfar Sava. The Kav-Or medical database holds information and explains medical and surgical procedures to children through special presentation and helps reduce children's anxieties, which leads to a better collaboration between them and their parents with the medical staff. Kav-Or helps 120,000 children a year continue their education uninterrupted, in addition to 20,000 hospitalized outpatients who are treated daily in specialist clinics such as dialysis and cancer clinics. All 100 children’s units in 27 hospitals across Israel have Kav-Or programs and are networked together its website. Background The State of Israel provides and finances the public health system through a health security tax citizens pay from their salaries. The hospital system, and children’s wards in particular, typically run at full, or over-capacity. Before 1993, the Ministry of Education provided children in hospital with classes and teachers, however classes were only run in the mornings (when children were often busy with medical tests and treatments), and teachers were not able to provide classes that tailored to each child’s needs as children of very different ages were in the same classes. Strategy The core activity of Kav-Or is distance learning for children in hospital aged 3 through 21. It includes distance learning software and services, a virtual playground, enrichment, and online computer connections between sick children and teachers. Kav-Or operates in collaboration with the Ministry of Education schools in hospitals and with other organizations that provide assistance to children. Volunteers for Kav-Or complement the Ministry’s staff and allow the children to access the computers with supervision after the teachers have left. In addition to the PCs in the classrooms, laptops are placed at the bedsides of children who are bed-bound, as well as in treatment rooms, such as dialysis rooms, where children undergo regular and lengthy procedures. Kav-Or’s medical database displays interactive movies that prepare children and their parents for medical procedures, such as prepping for hernia surgery and catheterization, with explanations that help children better understand the treatment they will undergo, reduce their anxiety, and improve communications with the medical team. Kav Or’s interior designers create and build a stimulating environment for children in hospitals with bright colors, converting the bleak atmosphere of most hospitals into rooms with fountains and an inviting jungle. Kav-Or is now focusing on reaching children in all 9 psychiatric hospitals and exporting its model abroad. It is also designing a virtual school for the Ministry of Education that will provide distance education for all children in Israel. The Entrepreneur Dr. Bilha Piamenta studied teaching and urban planning. She taught at David Yellin College and at ORT high school. While at David Yellin she installed the computerized distance-learning program at the College and thus was inspired to found Kav-Or. She retired at 2002 from the Ministry of Education. Kav-or is Dr. Piamenta life's work where she has worked since establishing it.
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