Innovation 4 Inclusion

This past weekend turned out to be a special one to spend in Sharon. Yesterday, we attended the 2019 “Innovation 4 Inclusion Make-A-Thon” at NuVu The Innovation School in Cambridge, Massachusetts. This event was inspired by Tikkun Olam (Hebrew for “repair of the world”) Makers Israel, an organization that works to create solutions to everyday challenges for people with disabilities. The program had been piloted at one school in 2017 and has now expanded to include eight Jewish day schools from across the greater Boston area.

Over the past year, each school was paired with a “Need Knower,” a person with a disability who experiences a challenge in need of a solution in order for the person to participate more fully in daily life. Although the program is primarily designed for junior high school age children, they made an exception to be able to include Striar Hebrew Academy of Sharon (SHAS), which includes children through the fifth grade, and where our granddaughter Maya is a student who was part of the team selected to participate on Sunday.

The SHAS team was paired with a young man named Ethan who has a disability called Spastic Paraplegia, a degenerative disease which effects the lower part of his body. The challenge that Ethan asked the students to try to solve is to improve the traction for his crutches on the snow and ice that are frequent during the Boston winters. The team came up with a product that screws retracting claws on to the bottom of his crutches, thereby adding support for him when the roads and sidewalks can be especially treacherous for a person with disabilities.

What a great program this is! The room was packed and the lighting required a much better camera, but Barry did manage to snap a quick picture of Maya during her presentation.

Kudos also to our daughter Dina, Director of Teaching and Learning at SHAS, who was instrumental in arranging for the students to participate in this exciting opportunity.

Love,

Rebecca