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“Survivor in MJC” Game

June 20, 2004

A new project started in the MJC for teens on June 20, 2004. It followed the idea of the world known reality show “Survivor”. During a week ten Jewish teens from the JCC Emunah “Teens Club” lived in a specially arranged apartment separately from their parents and participated in all the Minsk Jewish Campus programs — studying, helping Hesed Rachamim clients and doing many other things.

Ten Survivors

The initiator of the project was MJC Jewish Educator Irina Abramovich. She thought that a fresh program was needed for Jewish teens in order to involve them into the Jewish community life and make the idea of the social communal services in the community sound attractive. So, she came up with an idea of “Survivor” game in the MJC. She thought that teens would stay on the territory of MJC for a week helping the elderly and teaching the community juniors, earning their nutrition by doing good deeds for the needy and the community at large.

As all the decisions about program running are made by the MJC Board, Irina laid her idea on the table. Some directors welcomed the idea, but some were very much skeptical about such practices. For several months Irina had talks with MJC organizations' directors, teens' parents and many other involved parties. She had been convincing them that teens' living away from home and helping MJC organizations and visitors would see the inside story of MJC operation and understand the importance of the social work in the community and for the community through the game.

Hot discussions had lasted for a long time before the elimination round for “Survivor in MJC” was announced. Only those members of the Teens Club who aged from 14 to 18 could participate. All the participants' parents were to sign letters of agreement where they stated that they were not against their children's participation in the game. All those who came for the elimination round were explained the rules:

• NO exceptions (everybody was to participate in all the scheduled Jewish community programs and be ready to act when required)

• NO parents for a week (they had to sleep in a specially arranged apartment)

• NO leaving MJC territory without a special permission

• NO food (they had to earn their nutrition by work)

• NO phones, Internet or any other means of communication

• NO money (they even had to move around the city on foot)

Ten bold girls and boys agreed to test themselves in such circumstances and went through a selection process. The Selection committee consisted of Sophia Filkova, JCC Emunah director, Natasha Makaeva, office manager of the AJJDC representation office in Belarus, and Grigory Abramovich, the Rabbi of the Religious Union for Progressive Judaism in the Republic of Belarus, and a psychologist. During the interviews each of them was asked about their expectations from the game, where they see themselves in the community and in the community's future, their knowledge of the Jewish traditions also was assessed. All the participants expressed their great desire to work for the community's prosperity and each of them took this opportunity as a privilege. All ten competitioners were granted the chance to be participants of the game as all of them were excellent at Jewish values knowledge and had burning desire to help.

But there was a pre–requisite to the game: the selected participants were to work out the logo for the game. When they came up with the idea, their logo was put on T–shirts that they wore during the game week.

So, on Sunday evening of June 20, 2004, the ten participants of the project gathered in JCC Emunah where they were repeated the rules of the game to and got acquainted with Alex Kruger, a psychologist who held daily psychological trainings for the participated teens.

And the game started…

Each morning the teens woke up at 7 am and went to the MJC fitness center to do their morning excises. After breakfast the participants had a meeting with the directors of the MJC organizations the young Jews about their organizations' work in the community and, of course, said the words of appreciation and encouragement to the teens. Those meetings gave the participants the opportunity to communicate with the community builders and find out about the diversity of programs run in the Jewish community of Minsk. After the words of appreciation of work that the teens were doing, the directors gave the teens practical assignments in their respective organizations.

Right after that the participants were divided into “working groups” and began their daily assignments… Thus, some had to go on hoe visits to the home–bound Hesed Rachamim clients, some had to work with children, some were involved into the playground cleaning work, etc.

All in all they worked in the following directions:

• Work in Hesed Rachamim
• Counseling in the Mazal Tov summer day camp
• Cleaning the MJC backyard (to transform it into a playground)
• Work in the museum archive
• Visit to an orphanage (in the framework of the non–sectarian aspect of the project)

After a day of work the teens met the psychologist and participated in the psychological trainings. Then, they all went to their “temporary home” where they had a feedback session and selected the winner of the day. During a week the Survivors wrote several songs that became their anthems.

The week of the “Survivor in MJC” brought some tangible results:

• the playground became colorful and a sandbox was placed there;
• humanitarian aid, toys and school supplies were brought to the Belarusian orphanage
• a part of the museum archive was neatly sorted out
• Some Hesed Rachamim client's apartments were put to order.

Finally, on June 26, 2004, on a meeting of the MJC board (OrgKomitet), the two winners were selected. In addition, each participant received a prize and heard many warm words from the MJC organizations' staff. The teens want the project to be continued and MJC organizations' directors are looking into opportunities to start one more “Survivor in MJC” game.

Obviously, the project turned out to be a great success, and even those MJC Board members, who were not very much welcoming the idea at the beginning, stated that such activities should be encouraged in the Jewish youth circles as they show the inside story of the daily Jewish community life and bring up young Jews in the spirit of responsibility and commitment to the Jewish Community.

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