Yudit Bolotovsky received the Young Leadership Award at the RJCF 10th Anniversary Charity Gala on April 10th, 2016
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Yudit is currently in her first year of Northeastern University’s Speech and Language Pathology two-year Master’s Program. She has been involved in the Boston-Sderot project since 2012, and has traveled to Israel both as a counselor (2012), and as the Program Director (2013/2015). Yudit was born in Israel and even though she moved to Boston at the age of 3, she has maintained a strong connection to her homeland.
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This connection with the land and people of Israel has brought Yudit back to the Sderot camp year after year. "Though a large portion of my family resides in Tel Aviv, I make sure to always visit my second family in Sderot during any trip I take to Israel. They are like the brothers and sisters I never had.”
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During her time as program director, the camp gained a large group of new campers - Moroccan Israelis, who are not Russian speakers. This influx of new campers brought on many changes to the camp. Her focus was on helping these new campers immerse into the camp community and form a connection with the project. Despite the significant language barrier, cultural differences, and some resistance to authority, the camp was able to run smoothly and successfully! Yudit also implemented several new activities, and worked on creating a math/English curriculum to be passed down among our Boston counselors to use during future camps. Using her knowledge of education, literacy, and specific learning styles, Yudit is working to establish an effective way to teach these kids English/math skills while keeping it fun! Yudit hopes to apply all of her experiences with the children of Sderot to her future work with children as a Speech-Language Pathologist.