An emergency call to our head office is a daily event. Operating three shelters and 24-hour hotlines in several languages, we are used to incoming referrals from all over Israel. We receive 30-40 calls monthly and can accept approximately half of all the incoming applications. Often there is no place for women in need in other shelters and social services tear their hair out trying to find a safe location for women in immediate need.

We plan to build a shelter that will be accessible for women with disabilities. However, this will take several years. Right now, none of our shelters are accessible to women in wheelchairs.

On occasion we have taken in women with varied disabilities: deaf and blind women, victims of Theledomide taken by the mother during pregnancy, women with broken limbs, women on crutches. Mothers whose children had all kinds of disabilities. We had to turn away women who were on wheelchairs.

Some time ago, we received an urgent request to take in a woman on a wheelchair with her 5-year old son. The woman’s former husband, who had abused her in the past, was leaving prison that day and had threatened “to do her in” while in jail. She was helpless and petrified.

This was clearly an unusual request. Being familiar with our three shelters, it did not take me long to realize which of our shelters had few stairs and could be made accessible in an emergency. After checking the width of her wheelchair, with a tape measure we checked entrances and doorways, toilets and showers, corridors and kitchen. We found out which room had enough space for her to move around. We decided she could use the toilet and shower in the children’s utilities since the women’s facilities were not accessible. Then we called social services and informed them we could accept her.

Aviva arrived with her son several hours later, sharing a bedroom with 2 women

Today she is an integral part of the group, looking after babies while their mothers carry out chores she cannot perform, helping with the cooking, cheerful and lively. Her son, too, has found his place among the 16 children living communally at this shelter. She feels free and confident of a better future.

Where there’s a will there’s a way.