Visiting Save a Child’s Heart in Israel this week, Yared Worde met children from Ethiopia, Angola, Zanzibar, Uganda, Moldova, the Palestinian Authority and Iraq, who were all brought to israel to undergo life-saving heart surgery.

A 25-year-old man, Yared Worde, arrives in Israel on Sunday November 20 for a very special visit – this is Yared’s first visit to Israel since his life was saved in 1999 by Save a Child’s Heart, an Israeli-based international humanitarian project providing life-saving heart surgery for children from developing countries.

Born in 1984, Yared was an orphan who lived on the streets of Addis Abba scrounging for food and basic existence. When he was twelve, he was diagnosed as having rheumatic heart disease. Yared’s doctor referred him to the Save a Child’s Heart program and he was brought to Israel where he underwent life saving heart surgery. Today Yared is the Director of the Saint Yared School in Addis Abba, a school that fights poverty through education and provides education to the city’s poorest and unprivileged children.

Two years ago, in 2009, Yared met a very ill young orphan named Tamaru, who was brought to the hospital in Addis Abba from his orphanage in north Ethiopia, because he desperately needed life-saving heart surgery. Yared immediately approached Save a Child’s Heart for help. It took a few weeks until Tamaru was well enough to fly to Israel to undergo open heart surgery. During those weeks Yared personally took care of Tamaru. When Tamaru returned to Ethiopia after his successful surgery, Yared took him into his home in order for Tamaru to receive the necessary follow-up care.

Yared recently turned down a full paid scholarship to an American University for a Master’s Degree because he believes it is more important that he remain in Ethiopia, run the school and give as many indigent children as possible the chance for a future through education. Yared is married to Netanyet and has a two month old baby girl named Anna Ami, who is named after the founder of Save a Child’s Heart, the late Dr. Ami Cohen who operated on Yared and saved his life.

Visiting Save a Child’s Heart in Israel this week, Yared met children from Ethiopia, Angola, Zanzibar, Uganda, Moldova, the Palestinian Authority and Iraq, who were all brought to israel to undergo life-saving heart surgery. Yared told them about his experience and encouraged them to be strong. Yared also met with the doctors who treated him when he was in Israel 13 years ago.

Antonio is a 7-year-old boy from Luanda, Angola, who has four brothers and one sister.  He loves cars and has an appetite that never ends for anything ‘good and delicious’.

Hayat is 8 months old from Jimma, Ethiopia. She was diagnosed with congenital heart disease and came to Israel with her mother, Ganat, to receive treatment and undergo surgery. Hayat loves being the center of attention and shrieks with laughter when people smile and wave at her. She loves dancing with her arms to the music of Justin Bieber, and even though she is not strong enough to crawl, she scoots around on the floor by sliding backwards or with the help of a toy truck that she loves to ride.

Lawen is a 5-year-old girl from northern Iraq who is in Israel with her mother. With her active and vibrant personality, little Lawen made friends with everyone at the hospital very quickly. She is full of life and it is a delight to see her smile and play with everyone around her.

Source: MFA

OPENING NIGHT

We are high on adrenaline after covering the first day of Tel Aviv Fashion Week! Especially exciting is our new partnership with Good Eye Video Productions, who followed us throughout the night as we captured fascinating fashion personas.

What to wear to this monumental moment in Israeli fashion has been on our minds for weeks, and this is what we settled on: Daina (AKA “Dreed”) wore an embroidered Ishtar maxi dress, Michell (AKA “Tea”) rocked her leather bustier meets soft pleats creation from “Mel Boutique“, and Sonya went with a Cavalli inspired Zebra print blouse paired with black skinny pants with white piping.

The atmosphere was electrifying- all around us we heard every language from Italian to Russian to Japanese! The shows were fantastic, but you need not enter the tents in order to see fabulous fashion, it was walking amongst us! There was drag, prep, and formal evening wear- every end of the fashion spectrum was represented. We saw bright colors (red and neon blue seeming the most prominent), sequins, black leather, feathers and furs, and a lot of high heels!

Roberto Cavalli show

A few of the Dreed*Tea team made it into the Roberto Cavalli show which was not an easy feat, as this was the main event of the day! Daina even tried pretending to be from American Express, but that tactic got her only so far. Hundreds of local and Foreign Press jockeyed for the prime position in front of the stage as our camera guy crawled up the side rails and hung on for dear life to capture footage without his light man, who was left behind. Nonetheless, the show was magical. Hundreds of people surrounded the stage as stunning models wearing Cavalli’s exquisite creations strutted down the runway. Cavalli presented his Spring / Summer 2012 Collection and as expected, he did not disappoint! True to his style there were flowing silhouettes mixed with rocker / bohemian undertones, sparkles, prints, and a prominence of white. Everyone cheered at the finale as Mr. Cavalli himself came down the runway to take his bow. Poorly lit video coverage to come!

photo by Hamaguen

More from the opening at http://dreedtea.com/dreedtea-coverage-of-tlvfw-2011.html

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DAY 1 RECAP

Yaniv Persy

One could clearly see the Parisian influences in this young designer’s creations. The mostly black and leather collection had classic lines with angular modern twists. This Fall 2012/13 line is very in tune with general S&M trend.

Shay Shalom

In a day dominated by black, white, and grey this was a standout! There was color – lots of it! The beautiful, precise tailoring helped reign in the loud fabric which might otherwise have seemed child-like, but the tailored, clean shapes gave the collection a feeling of sophistication instead.

Sugar Daddy

Punk & Goth influences were unmistakable on this runway. It was tailor made, from the hair and makeup, to the shoes (and everything in-between) for a young, hip punk-rocker with a sophisticated edge. The designers clearly stuck to their tag line of “Street Couture”, and we are ever grateful.

More from day 1 at http://dreedtea.com/tel-aviv-fashion-week-recap-of-day-1.html

Check out the new Israeli Fashion Blog Dreed*Tea

Mid East Green building projects like those in Abu Dhabi’s much publicized Masdar City,  green building construction plans for Saudi Arabia, and a newly completed green building in Amman Jordan are indications that a number of countries in this region are interested in making commercial and residential buildings more environmental friendly. This also holds true for Israel with an “eco tower” now being built in Tel Aviv, and what is being touted as the country’s first green shopping mall now under construction in the coastal city of Netanya.

Ir Yamim Mall skylights

The Netanya mall, known as the Ir Yamim (Sea City)  Shopping Mall is nearing completion in the city’s new upscale Ir Yamim residential neighborhood.

The 80,000 sq meter building, scheduled to open its mid March, 2012, is being built with special glass “sky lights” in the upper floors to let it utilize natural lighting during the daytime.

The AC system will be more energy saving and the water from condensation from its cooling coils will be used for irrigating the lawns and gardens that will surround the mall. Rain water during the winter rainy season will also be collected in special pools for use in watering the greenery around the building as well.

Mall food court area: LED and special florescent lighting

Under construction since early 2009, the mall will have more than 100 stores and food vendors and will include special areas for people to park bicycles and other green vehicles like electric powered carts and scooters.

In addition to the natural light sky-lighting in its two upper floors the building will feature energy saving LED and florescent lighting that have not been previously used in shopping malls in Israel due to either not being available or their high costs.

“We thought about using solar panels to provide electricity, but came to the conclusion that presently solar panels are not advanced enough yet” says Liora Renat-Engle, who, along with Gabi Gal are the two project architects with the Moore Yasky Sivan (MYS) architectural company that is involved in designing the mall’s unique features, including landscaping around the mall.

MYS’s Rinat-Engel also noted the special water saving landscaping around the mall:

 ”We are landscaping this mall with 25 dunam of special greenery that does not require large amounts of water. This includes planting trees like palm, carob, tamarask and sycamore. These trees need less water than other species. In other words, our aim is to provide ample greenery for the mall and use less water.”

“We have learned a lot from other shopping mall building projects regarding the need to build more ecological friendly buildings. This idea is also being taken into account when designing other projects, especially ones the Neot Midbar mall being built in water scarce locations like the Negev desert city of Beersheva”.

Source: Greenprophet

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