Dr. Aron Syngalowski, chairman of the executive of the World ORT Union, arrived here today from Geneva for discussions with the Joint Distribution Committee on the financial requirements of the ORT vocational program during 1955. In a statement, he said that about 18,000 people received technical education at ORT schools in 19 countries this year. “From the ranks of the poorest and most distressed there have emerged thousands of young men, more energetic and sure of themselves because their technical knowledge has opened fresh opportunities” he declared.
“The ORT program for 1955, which will be discussed with the leaders of JDC, anticipates an increase in vocational school activities in Israel and North Africa,” he stressed. “ORT schools in these areas as well as in Europe are now filled beyond capacity. Two thousand applicants could not be accepted because of lack of space. Jewish children in distant provincial areas of North Africa and Iran live in unbelievable conditions of acute depression. We cannot, unfortunately, build a permanent school in every small town. However, in 1955, ORT will introduce mobile schools which are able to penetrate these remote places.
“ORT’s expenditures for 1954 will amount to $3,200,000. Toward meeting these costs, we received $1,250,000 from the JDC out of United Jewish Appeal funds, ORT’s income from governments and from Jewish supporters in countries in which it operates is steadily rising, but not in the same measure as the growing need of Jewish youth for vocational training. The number of students in ORT’s 32 schools in Israel is now more than 2,700. A great measure of the credit for this development of ORT’s institutions is due the Central Institute at Geneva which trains instructors and teachers for the trade schools.
Dr. Syngalowski described the “excellent and harmonious” cooperation of ORT and the JDC everywhere and expressed the thanks of all ORT organizations around the world to the JDC and the United Jewish Appeal. There are women’s ORT committees in 14 countries. “These women’s organizations, and first and foremost, the Women’s American ORT, provide a school health program, a recreational program, summer vacation colonies and work clothes to tens of thousands of ORT students,” Dr. Syngalowski observed.
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