Who we are
Malki Foundation UK, a UK registered charity (Reg. Number 1164793), provides support for Keren Malki, an Israeli charity focused since 2001 on the needs of Israeli families from every part of that country’s socio-demographic spectrum irrespective of nationality, religion, ethnic origin or political affiliation.
The core mission of Keren Malki is to provide support to the families of children with special needs in Israel, to enable them to care for their special needs children at home. This is achieved through the provision of specialist equipment and paramedical therapeutic care.
The challenges that face a family caring for a child with serious special needs are never simple. Neurological disorders, severe illness and childhood developmental problems change the lives of all parties: the child, the parents, the siblings, even the community surrounding the family. We know these families need sustained, targeted help to stand up to these challenges.
At Malki Foundation UK, we believe there are no better advocates and caregivers for a child than the parents. Global research shows that institutional care, as important and indispensable as it can be, almost always has some negative effects on the child and the family. While other Western countries have long understood the detrimental effect of institutionalisation, Israel has been resistant to this view and government funding for home care is limited.
The funds and other support we provide enable three unique Keren Malki programmes:
Equipment
Lending Unit
In partnership with one of Israel’s major rehabilitation hospitals, the long-term loan of special equipment for mobility, accessibility and homecare
Therapists
at Home
On a subsidy basis, funds essential paramedical therapies including physical, occupational, speech, hydrotherapy and therapeutic horse riding.
Therapists
On Wheels
The Zlata Hersch Memorial Programme sends supervised paramedical therapists to children with severe disabilities who are house-bound or live in Israel’s peripheral communities (or both)
We make a substantial difference by helping affected families in Israel to care for their child with severe special needs at home. Years of experience have borne out how this gives a child the best chance for happiness, better health and an overall greater quality of life. If these services were not available to those families, many of them would have no alternative but to place the child in institutional care.
All the programmes we support:
Contribute meaningfully to a higher quality of life and better outcomes for children with severe disabilities.
Empower the parents to be active decision makers in their child’s care.
Substantially alleviate the financial and physical hardships that often result in the child being institutionalised.
A Living Memorial,
A Beautiful Life
Arnold Roth with his wife and a small circle of friends established Keren Malki in Jerusalem in 2001. He writes:
Malka Chana Roth was born in Melbourne, Australia on November 27, 1985. Caring, sweet-natured, talented, vivacious, musical and deeply devoted to doing everything in her power to help children with disabilities, Malki, as she was known to everyone, brought happiness into many lives.
Malki’s experiences with her own severely disabled youngest sister led her to become passionate about bringing happiness, support and encouragement to the lives of children facing similar challenges. Malki volunteered to work with children with special needs. At school and in the community, she inspired her peers to do the same.
But on 9th August 2001, Malki’s own life ended in a barbaric act of Palestinian Arab terrorism in the crowded Sbarro restaurant in the centre of Jerusalem. She was fifteen years old. Her death and her beautiful life are the inspiration behind the establishment of the foundation that bears her name.
Fifteen other innocent people, many of them children and teenagers, enjoying a meal on a summers’ day in the center of the country’s capital city, were murdered in the same barbaric attack. One of those was Malki’s lifelong girlfriend Michal Raziel, aged 16.
Malki and Michal were buried in adjoining, simple graves in Jerusalem’s Har Menuchot cemetery. To the large, grieving crowd at the funeral on a hot Friday afternoon, I eulogised Malki, describing her life as an act of beauty in all but its very final moments.
Malki had completed tenth grade at Horev Girls School in Jerusalem. She was a much-loved madricha (group leader) of nine-year-old girls in the Ma’ale Adumim branch of the Ezra youth movement, and a gifted classical flautist. She composed her own music.
May the sweet and precious memory of Malka Chana Roth serve as a blessing.
Michal Raziel z”l and Malki, the closest of friends. Inseparable in life. Buried side by side.
Malka Chana Roth with her sister, Haya Elisheva
