Contribute to Akim

AKIM represents 35,000 people with intellectual and developmental disabilities and their families, acting to realize their rights and improve their welfare, using legal advocacy and advocating for inclusion within the community. AKIM also provides financial support for hundreds of families who otherwise would not have been able to cover the heavy costs of caring for their loved ones, through the AKIM Aid Fund.

Advocacy for inclusion within the community

AKIM, through the Advocacy for Inclusion within the Community Department, is a center for support, assistance and information in all aspects of life for people with IDD and their families. The department coordinates the activity of all 68 AKIM branches spread all across the country. Additionally, it establishes and guides parents' committees in various housing frameworks to assure residents receive the best of care. AKIM National Parents Board for Supportive Housing is democratically elected and coordinates the work of the entire local parents committees.

Support for parents is also being offered by parents themselves through the Parents for Parents Supportive Call Center managed by the department. Operating in both Hebrew and Arabic and manned by volunteering parents to children with IDD, the call center provides families with emotional support and information.

Legal advocacy

AKIM’s Legal Advocacy Department operates to promote and realize the rights of people with IDD and their relatives in the Knesset, the Israeli Parliament, courts, governmental offices and local authorities. In addition, the department provides updated information on various topics relevant to people with intellectual disabilities and their families. Furthermore, the department operates a legal clinic for the rights of people with IDD at the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzelia.

AKIM Aid Fund

AKIM Aid Fund was founded to support and improve the quality of life of the weakest people with IDD and their families. The fund allocates grants for the purchase of adapted and medical equipment, accessible renovations of homes, para-medical treatments not funded by the state and complicated dental treatments partially funded by the state for families of low socio-economic status who can't cover the heavy costs.

AKIM is a pioneer in the field of housing in the community for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. Committed to its person centered approach, AKIM follows the principle that a person with IDD has a basic right to live within the community, in a housing framework suited to his various and changing needs.

Until the 1970’s, adults with IDD were institutionalized in dormitories segregated from cities or population centers, as part of an outdated approach that depicted intellectual disability as illness and people with IDD as patients to be medically treated.
AKIM’s advocacy work, among others, had brought to a change in attitudes in Israel. In 1975, the first hostel within the community was established in northern Tel Aviv.

Nowadays, AKIM is promoting the establishment of apartments within the community, as the preferred model that allows the protection of individuals’ freedoms as well as inclusion. AKIM’s housing frameworks include more than forty-four apartments, from Safed in the north to Eilat in the south and twelve hostels located within neighborhoods. All of them operate in accordance to person centered approach ISO standard. The new standard emphasizes the professional staff’s obligation to maintaining human dignity, paying close attention to the persons' wishes and supporting them towards a sovereign life and full integration within the community.

Getting up in the morning and going to work is an important component in every person's life; even more so, when the person has intellectual disability.
We at AKIM believe in creating a market that enables every person to fulfil their potential by working in a job that expresses their gifts, talents and abilities, and that enables mobility as per the person's changing physical, cognitive and emotional capabilities.

AKIM develops and operates a wide range of employment frameworks adapted to people with IDD and their functioning levels and working abilities.
Among them are nursing-therapeutic day centers, sheltered guided groups in the free market and vocational programs in collaboration with Tel Aviv University (the Dental Sterilization Officer Training) and Bar Ilan University (Musequality- professional practical training in music studies). Also, AKIM is promoting direct employment of persons with IDD in the free market with the escort and support of AKIM's professional staff.

AKIM works tirelessly to include people with IDD in every aspect of the Israeli society. Serving in the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) is a crucial part of living in Israel as it reinforces connections to the land and its people. For a person with IDD the IDF constitutes as an important platform to integration and feeling included.

AKIM's Equal in Uniform program enables intellectually disabled young adults to volunteer, serve and contribute to Israel’s safety and security. Every year, AKIM recruits, trains, supports, escorts and empower young adults with IDD ages 21-27 in an innovative two-year pre-military training and military service in the IDF.
After the pre-military training, participants are allocated to either an individual service track or a group service track according to the IDF's needs and the participant's age, wishes and abilities.

The program is made possible with the assistance of the Ministry of Labor, Social Services and Social Affairs and the Israeli Defense Force.

AKIM considers culture and healthy life-style important elements in having a meaningful life for every person. With over 30 years of experience in developing and promoting rich variety of culture, art and sports activities, AKIM is constantly enriching and empowering the lives of people with IDD and their inclusion in the society.

Among the services and various frameworks AKIM is operating one can find adults social clubs, children (ages 3-6) and youth (ages 6-21) after school activities in the Aftercare programs at schools of the special education system, day camps in the high holidays and summer caps, organized vacations all across the country and abroad for people in every functioning levels, leisure activities in housing frameworks and much more.

Arts @ AKIM
AKIM has two theater companies: the first is the Other Theater in Tel Aviv showing the Cabaret Cellophane Paper; the second is the Afula Valley Theater presenting the play Simple Dreams, winner of the 2017 Shalem Foundation Award for Excellency.

All the actresses and actors are people with IDD and the plays showcase their personal experiences, presenting their lives in an unfiltered fashion. The plays are an important tool for changing attitudes towards people with IDD and for raising awareness to their struggle to be included in the society.

In addition to the theater groups, AKIM has several choirs and is promoting artists and plastic artists with IDD. By organizing exhibitions, AKIM is helping artists to publish and market their art works.