About Shalva
Shalva leads the way the world understands, cares for, and embraces disability.
Shalva, the Israel Association for the Care and Inclusion of Persons with Disabilities is dedicated to providing transformative care for individuals with disabilities, empowering their families, and promoting social inclusion.
Shalva provides an all-encompassing range of services for thousands of people with disabilities from infancy to adulthood and their families. Shalva’s comprehensive life-cycle programming provide leading-edge therapies, inclusive educational frameworks, social and recreational activities, employment training, and independent living, as well respite and family support.
The Shalva National Center’s advanced programs and facilities create new frontiers in disability rehabilitation, research, and inclusion; defining new standards in the field and impacting the world beyond those in Shalva’s direct care.
Shalva gives equal access and opportunity to all participants regardless of religion, ethnic background, or financial capability.
Our story
Believing that the care of children with disabilities should not be left to the family alone, Shalva’s founders Malki and Kalman Samuels created a therapeutic environment in which children with disabilities could grow and thrive. This approach was based on the Samuels’ own experience with raising their son Yossi who was left blind, deaf and acutely hyperactive as the result of a faulty vaccination.
Yossi’s disabilities took their toll on his family. Providing him with constant loving care, they became exhausted and isolated. Many professionals and well-intentioned friends suggested placing Yossi in an institution. But Malki refused and vowed to G-d that if He helped Yossi, she would dedicate herself to helping other children with disabilities and their families.
When Yossi was eight, Shoshana Weinstock, a deaf special education teacher penetrated Yossi’s wall of silence via Hebrew fingerspelling. She taught Yossi his first word, “shulchan” – Hebrew for table – thus creating a relationship analogous to that of Annie Sullivan and Helen Keller. Malki recalled her promise and with Kalman’s help, Shalva was founded in 1990.
What began as an afternoon program for eight children in a local apartment has grown into a national center serving thousands of people with disabilities from infancy to adulthood from the entire spectrum of Israeli society.
Over the course of over thirty years, Shalva developed transformative programs to fill needs that were previously neglected. The success of these programs has received government and cultural recognition, inspiring grassroots changes in public policy and social inclusion.
Standards of management and partnership
Shalva’s programs are all authorized by Israeli government ministries and are certified to provide professional care for every category of disability. Shalva partners with academic institutions, government bodies, and communities worldwide to advance the field of disability care and to create unique opportunities for inclusion. Shalva’s excellence in operations, management, best practices, financial accountability and transparency receive esteemed recognition.
Awards and recognition
Shalva’s exemplary standards of management are evaluated and affirmed by the ISO. Shalva is one of only six non-profit organizations to receive Midot’s Seal of Outstanding Effectiveness; the only one to do so in the field of disability.
Each of Shalva’s programs are respectively recipients of the Israeli Government’s Ministry of Social Affairs and Social Services, Ministry of Education, and Ministry of Health’s highly regarded recognition.
Shalva has received numerous awards throughout the years, including:
President’s Prize for Excellence
Jerusalem Municipality Award of Distinction for National Service Volunteers
Knesset Speaker’s Quality of Life Prize for Outstanding Humanitarian Service
Jerusalem Foundation Prize in Honor of Teddy Kollek for Leadership and Public Excellence
Jerusalem’s Award of Distinction for National Service Volunteers
The Ministry of Education Outstanding Volunteer Award
Nefesh b’Nefesh Bonei Zion Prize
Bar Ilan University, Honorary Doctor of Philosophy
Mayor of Jerusalem’s Award for Exceptional Service
Shalem Foundation Award as “Israel’s Most Unique Program for the Mentally Challenged
The Teddy Kollek Award
Aminadav National Service Award for Excellence
SHALEM Foundation Award
The Ruderman Prize for Inclusion
Lions International, Israel’s Man of the Year Award
Ruppin Academy Esteemed Fellowship Award
