East Netanya Community Center

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The East Netanya Community Center (Matnas) operates as an independent NPO and operational arm of the Netanya Municipality in all areas of culture, leisure, and supplementary education, and is a leading and significant factor in all these areas for all sectors of the growing and developing community in East Netanya.

About us

The community center is characterized by professionalism and a high level of guidance and content, but also by its warm and homelike environment.

The community center runs a broad system of clubs and classes in a wide range of fields, in several locations, as well as many community and cultural activities, after-school child care facilities for pre-school and school children, youth activities, and a system of volunteerism with dozens of volunteers for different projects.

The community center provides services to a clientele of around 8,500 regular participants, as well as some 20,000 occasional participants.

The community center’s programs, services, and operations emanate from the needs of the community, as part of a general philosophy which works to improve the community’s quality of life, while taking into consideration and adapting things to the unique wishes and needs of the individual and the various population sectors. Within this framework, the community center works to deepen the connection with, and make its programs tailored to, the needs and wishes of the local community, by developing and improving tools for finding and identifying needs, constant development of planning and evaluation processes, flexibility regarding the financing given to the community center from various bodies and institutions, increasing involvement of the residents in making and executing decisions, and development of channels for community feedback to the center so as to provide self-criticism and change.

The organization’s employees are committed to responsibility and devotion, while providing an individual and rapid response to each client. The community center NPO is administered by Smadar Dromi, along with a public administration which includes public representatives (leading and involved residents from the community), representatives of the Netan​ya Municipality and of the Israel Association of Community Centers. Chairperson of the public administration is Adv. Yossi Laor Machluf.

Goals

Complementing the existing services in society and expressing the value of social and cultural pluralism in Israeli society.

Making the community center services accessible to all community members. For this purpose, the community center allocates hundreds of thousands of shekels for discounts according to defined criteria for community residents requiring them, and the community center also has a goal of reaching the correct balance between separate programs, designed to meet the unique needs of various population sectors, and joint programs, aimed at the community in general.

Serving as a meeting place for different population sectors, without competition, while strengthening common values and nurturing mutual respect and tolerance to the differences in needs and cultural values of the various population groups.

Opening up to those coming to us, a broad world of arts and culture, study and thinking skills, imagination and creativity, development and strengthening of physical fitness and resilience, self-defense abilities and competition, all in a professional and supportive atmosphere with much fun and enjoyment, while emphasizing responsibility, cooperation, tolerance and mutual respect, education toward human-universal and Jewish cultural values, and providing tools such as self-confidence, positive self-image, determination, discipline, concentration and tenacity of purpose, required for success and influence, and contributing to society and the individual within it.