Israel activists promote humanitarian program

The Coalition of Hopkins Activists for Israel (CHAI) hosted activist Carmi Kobren to speak about the humanitarian international project Save a Child’s Heart (SACH) this past Tuesday in Shaffer Hall. Kobren is the sister of the late Dr. Ami Cohen, the project’s founder.

Founded in 1995, SACH is dedicated to bringing children who suffer from life-threatening heart conditions in underdeveloped nations such as Iraq and the Palestinian Territories to Israel for free open-heart surgery. It was created by Cohen, who assisted local children with heart disease while serving in Korea as part of the U.S. Armed Forces in 1988. There are offices for SACH in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Holland, Switzerland, Australia, South Africa, Kenya, Ghana and Vietnam.

Funding for SACH comes from a variety of sources, including family foundations and Kobren’s campaign Children Saving Children, which collects money at schools and synagogues. The campaign typically raises $60,000 to $70,000 each year, which usually saves six or seven children.

Kobren noted that every 29 hours, SACH’s doctors save a child’s life.

“My brother’s dream was that [the doctors] would [operate on] 250 children a year, and they reached 298 children last year,” Kobren said.

Kobren spoke about SACH’s mission and the measures that parents undergo to send their children to Israel, where they stay in the Legacy Heritage Children’s Home for two to three months. After arriving in Israel, about six children are assigned to a chaperone. If the patient is an infant, the mother is sometimes able to travel to Israel with her child.

Kobren stated that SACH has changed substantially since its creation because parents who do not travel with their children are now able to communicate with them via computers.

Kobren relayed anecdotes about the children she met while in Israel. She told the students about a mother from Africa who sold her farm so she could afford a ticket to Israel to be with her son and a 72-year-old Italian woman who spent a year learning English so she could volunteer in the home for two weeks. She also spoke of a clinic called Heart of the Matter, which meets every Tuesday to provide cardiac care to Palestinian children.

Throughout the presentation, Kobren stopped speaking to answer questions, giving rise to student inquiries regarding how they themselves could volunteer.

“I think it’s important to understand the major things that are happening in Israel [and] the charities that are there that are helping people from other countries, not just Israelis. I think it’s important to spread the good word about Israel, not just about the war and politics. There [are] great things happening aside from that,” CHAI Treasurer Richard Mishaan said.

Mishaan was pleased with the turnout of the event.

“We could have had more people, but we usually don’t have huge events. I think it’s a great turnout,” Mishaan said.

Founded in 2001, CHAI aims to spread awareness and to educate the student body about the positive aspects of Israeli society and culture. CHAI often partners with organizations such as Young Judea and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee to host events.

The logo of SACH, a hand with a heart in the middle, was created in 2003 by a four-year-old patient from Moldova named Katya who told Cohen that she had dreamt that a hand took her to a faraway country where she received a new heart that allowed her to dance and sing.

“That’s the picture which we converted into the logo of Save a Child’s Heart, because that’s what really we’re all about, making children happy, dance, sing,” Kobren said.

Every year, there is an international SACH meeting in Israel. During the conference, people from all over the world go to the West Bank and visit the homes of children who had received medical help from SACH.

“That’s the dream ... that [SACH] would be Israel’s gift to the world and to the children of the world ... [other countries] would be able to see Israel as the humanitarian country that it is ... It is our belief that one day, one of these children we save will grow up to some seed of power and be able to help us with our neighbors,” Kobren said.