"Do You Know the Young Girls with the Bewildered and Disconnected Look? We Must Help Them"

"Do you know these girls you meet and immediately see something has happened to them?" Pnina Leshem asks me. "I mean the girls you look in the eye wanting to see a joyful and connected gaze, but instead, their look is bewildered, lost, and disconnected. It's clear something is going on with them, it's obvious they aren't well, and it's evident we can help them."

Pnina speaks from close experience with this topic. For over a decade, she has worked in the field, running a high school and a warm home for at-risk girls, and even directing a school for youth advancement studies. "This could be your daughter at home," she notes, "It could also be a student in your class, or girls you meet whose pain concerns you deeply, but you have no idea how to help, and you find yourself helpless."

Facing this pain, Pnina decided to launch an innovative seminar program that will provide all the knowledge, effective answers, and the strongest practical tools for preventing school dropout and appropriately supporting at-risk Haredi girls.

The Goal: Providing Tools

"The idea was born last summer," Pnina shares. "During those days, we conducted such a seminar, but it was closed, intended only for women who took my course on working with at-risk girls. It was an intensive training program for working in the field. Many graduates now work with girls or conduct support groups for parents, and they are quite active in matters concerning at-risk girls. Last summer, I gave them a gift at the end of the program—a two-day seminar at a hotel with luxurious conditions, featuring intensive lectures from leading speakers. When I saw up close how beneficial it was for them, I thought to myself it couldn't be that such a seminar would be closed to just a group of women. It should be opened up to a much wider audience so more women can enroll, come, and learn."

Immediately after the seminar ended, Pnina started planning the next seminar, which will take place, with Hashem's help, this coming Adar. "Again, it's going to be a very intense two-day seminar," she notes. "From Sunday at 10:30 AM to Monday afternoon, with lectures on subjects like dealing with the internet and screens, workshops on answers to questions of faith and Shabbat,

parents and adolescents, teenage addictions, and more, with leading experts like Rabbi Dan Tiomkin, specialists from the Retorno organization, and more. I want to emphasize that all the seminar content and lectures are overseen by my father—the brilliant Rabbi Zamir Cohen, shlita. He guides us in all our youth endeavors, whether in the high school I manage or in the youth advancement school we established. Even regarding these seminars, any questions are referred to him, and he gives us Torah insight and ruling."

Pnina Leshem is calling for the rescue of the girls. Watch:

And who is the seminar intended for?

"This time, the seminar is intended for principals, teachers, and school staff aware of disconnected students, those not integrated into the framework or Torah knowledge, and who envy the general world that seems glamorous to them. They want to learn how to reconnect them and acquire suitable tools. The seminar is also for mothers of teenagers and anyone who wants to learn about the field to get acquainted and actively engage with youth. These are issues we all encounter constantly, and it's important for us to be aware of their existence and prepare ourselves to provide the right answers and address them in the most precise way."

Pnina notes that because she believes that learning is more effective under good physical conditions, she has given serious thought to this as well. "The seminar will be held at the Nir Etzion Hotel, with two meat meals a day, a heated pool, high-quality rooms, and more, with great hope that everything will be beneficial for the purpose."

Now with registration open, the first twenty women to join get in at cost price.To register, click here.

For more details: 051-511-5909 leshempnina@gmail.co