–American ORT Federation delegates today approved a budget of just under $80 million for ORT aid to some 105,000 men, women and young people in 25 countries during 1981–the largest budget in the 100-year history of the worldwide education and vocational training organization.
Meeting at the Sheraton Centre here, some 800 delegates from all parts of the United States attending the national conference of the American ORT Federation–“the Charter Conference for ORT’s Second Century”–heard Sidney Leiwant, AOF president, declare that “While the 1981 budget represents an increase over previous ORT expenditures, it falls short of meeting the true demands on ORT training programs in a number of areas, notably Israel.
“The plain fact is that the urgent needs of tens of thousands of young people overseas continue to out-strip the funds available, and that the 1981 budget finds ORT caught in a financial vise which restrains us from meeting a considerable number of needs, even those with top priority.”
Leiwant, who was reelected president of the AOF for the coming year, noted that not only is every ORT school in Israel overcrowded, but “we see no immediate hope of supplying the several million dollars’ worth of laboratory and workshop equipment which needs immediate replacement, and many urgently needed and officially approved projects have been moved to the back burner.”
While the shortfall is most acute in Israel, Leiwant indicated, similar gaps between needs and budgetary allocations exist in ORT programs in France, Latin America and elsewhere.
Israel is to receive the largest financial subsidy in the 1981 budget-some $33,000,000-with France at more than $25,600,000. Argentina at $6,000,000-plus is the largest ORT program in Latin America; other countries with major ORT operations include Italy, Ethiopia, Morocco and India. More than 100,000 students, 70,000 of them in Israel, an increase of nearly 5,500 over the year before, participated in ORT education and vocational training programs during 1980.
MESSAGE FROM PRESIDENT REAGAN
In one of the first messages which he has sent to a national Jewish organization since his inauguration, Present Reagan declared:
“Nancy and I would like to commend and congratulate ORT as it begins a second century of fine work. It is the good fortune of your conference to set your sights on the decades ahead, to establish strategies for the time to come, and to sustain the quality by which ORT is known wherever its hand has come to rest on a segment of mankind. We wish you well in your tasks and assure you of our confidence that you will continue to perform during the next 100 years as admirably as you have in the past.”
Delegates honored retiring executive director, Paul Bernick, who has served in that post for more than 33 years. Donald Klein has been named executive vice president.
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