Workshops and seminars were held almost around the clock on such topics as
setting up a preschool, effective teaching, adult education, summer camp
activities, and teaching the laws of family purity. Professional development
workshops covered topics like public speaking, community development, and
fundraising.
But the Shluchot had also come from near and far to enhance their personal
effectiveness in their jobs, and sessions were scheduled to address their own
needs on issues such as personal organization and time management, marital
relations and child rearing. Acknowledged in these workshops, and by practically
every speaker throughout the five days of meetings, was the very challenging
role of Shluchim families.
Whether newly married and working as a team with her spouse for the first time
in a new community, or a seasoned community leader who tends to the needs of the
entire Jewish community, the Shluchah is usually at once a teacher, public
speaker, outreach worker, hostess to endless guests, wife to an equally busy
Shliach, and, most importantly, a parent to as many as 15 children, who are
themselves dealing with the unusual issues that stem from being a part of the
only Jewishly observant family in the area.
Indeed, several speakers cradled babies as they addressed their audience, or
carried beepers connected to the child care room equipped with cribs, toys and
playpens, where dozens of babysitters attended to the infants and toddlers who
had traveled to the conference with their mothers. Parallel workshops were held
for children and teenage girls who had also come along. The children's needs
were never secondary in their mothers' work, even throughout the most intense
and exciting sessions. One speaker interrupted her banquet address to announce
that "Baby 68 needs his Mommy."
ב"ה
Professional Development and Plain-Old Kibbitzing
February 3, 2002 12:58 AM
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