Journalist, activist Lihi Lapid named president of SHEKEL
“We feel strongly that together we can act effectively to facilitate a better society and community.”
By HANNAH BROWNYesh Atid leader Yair Lapid and his wife Lihi attend a women's committee convention in Tel Aviv(photo credit: NIR ELIAS / REUTERS)
Journalist and activist Lihi Lapid has been named president of SHEKEL, an organization that provides community services for people with special needs.Announcing the news at SHEKEL’s annual fund-raising gala at the Eretz Israel Museum in Ramat Aviv on Sunday, Clara Feldman, the CEO of SHEKEL, noted Lapid’s extensive work and activism on behalf of people with disabilities.“We are very excited about this appointment,” said Feldman.“We feel strongly that together we can act effectively to facilitate a better society and community.”Lapid told the audience: “Instead of talking about differences, we are here to talk about what we have in common, and we are not only here to talk, we are here to do and to implement. I fell in love with SHEKEL the very first day I encountered the connecting capacity and drawing power of the organization, to a life that is truly lived together.”Lapid will be serving SHEKEL alongside the organization’s chairman, Haim Ariel.Lapid is married to Yesh Atid Party chairman and former finance minister Yair Lapid.They have a daughter who has autism, and Lapid spoke movingly about her children at the event.SHEKEL serves 8,000 children and adults with cognitive, developmental, physical and mental disabilities, from all ethnic and religious backgrounds, including Jews and Arabs. The organization is known for its leadership in creating inclusion for people with disabilities within the wider community.With the goal of creating equality of opportunity in all areas of life, SHEKEL has developed wide-ranging, community- based services, which include: providing housing to enable disabled people to live in the community, vocational rehabilitation, employment within the community, cultural and leisure programs that bring together people with and without disabilities, programs that allow children with severe disabilities to be raised at home, and much more.