Aardvark: Gap Year Program in Israel

The only thing that I feel like I was able to appreciate as an outcome of this program was the kids I met, which I can get from any other gap year program. My biggest gripes stem from 2 main categories: Housing and Support and Communication from the program.

Housing:
The housing is very hit or miss. Some of the apartments are in very nice areas and are up to the standards one would expect. Other apartments, like mine, are on the border of a nice area and a very sketchy area. It's not uncommon for me to walk outside and see prostitutes and drug dealers on the side of the street if I am more than a 5-minute walk from my place. On top of the location, the apartment itself is very lacking. We were given the bare minimum in terms of cooking supplies, which we were told would be given to us. Our singular pan was so warped that it couldn't get hot because it didn't touch the stove. We have mold growing in our bathroom because the shower door doesn't stop water from coming out of the shower, frequently resulting in a flooded bathroom. Our building is also home to a drug-addicted squatter. It isn't uncommon to be walking down the stairs and happening upon a woman with all of her stuff covering the stairs, including numerous crack pipes and needles.

Support and Communication:
The support system for all of the kids on this program rests upon the madrichim; a group of staff members in their early 20s, charged with supporting a group of 15-20 kids. It's clear that the madrichim are doing as much as they can to support us, but they just don't have the capacity to deal with the issues of each one of us to the degree that we need. The one thing that they fall short on is their support towards us on the weekends. Each weekend, one madrich is "on-call" and they are tasked with dealing with any issues that come up over the weekend between all of the madrichim groups' kids. During this time period, it feels like the madrichim are trying to do as little work as possible. For instance, I had a sinus infection and asked for help with it on the weekend and I was told to wait until the weekend ended unless I needed to go to the ER. While I didn't need to go to the ER, I felt like dealing with an infection sooner rather than later is the right thing to do.
One time I was having an issue with my madricha about communication and when I talked to her about it, I was basically told that the problem was my attitude. When I brought this up with my community manager, I was told the exact same thing. I felt like I was powerless because every support system that was supposed to be in place for me, wasn't supportive.
The things that the program chooses to focus on don't make it feel like they care about the kids, rather they are only focusing on making money and bettering their public image. For instance, there was a week where I was really struggling with roommate issues as well as having trouble sleeping, which resulted in me missing a few Hebrew classes. All week I had been asking for help with the issues I was having but was met with no help at all. I was later called in for a meeting with my madricha, which I assumed would be when I was finally going to get the help I had been asking for. The meeting ended up being about my absences from class. When I explained that the other issues I was having were a large part of the cause for me missing class, it was ignored.

We are constantly being told to have open communication and to foster trust with the program, yet we are receiving nothing from their end except for lies or a lack of important information until the last minute.

The program always seems to be looking for ways to take our money as well. They offered extra overnight trips that we have to pay in cash for, they refused to replace the broken kitchen appliances we were given, forcing me to pay out of my pocket because I needed to eat, and they offer us nothing more than the bare minimum in terms of food. On the mandatory weekly trips, we have to buy our own food or bring our own lunch.

Overall, I would strongly urge anyone considering this program to reconsider. If you want anything besides the bare minimum, you have to take initiative and get it yourself. Getting help from Aardvark is very unlikely. I had a great time meeting new people, but every other aspect of this program is lacking to the extreme.

Aardvark is effective at getting you into Israel and for providing housing (although depending on your building/city, the housing ranges from nice apartments in perfect locations to barely liveable - think bug infestations and black mold - in "up and coming" neighbourhoods). This year, especially due to the influx of participants due to the pandemic, there was also a large and diverse group which made meeting interesting, thoughtful, and fun people possible. While most of the social scene revolves around alcohol and partying, the diversity made it possible to find some people who wanted to have meaningful friendships, use their time to get to know Israel's landscape and culture, and make the most of the unique opportunities available to them through their internships, travel, and exploration.

In order to experience these things, however, one must have a high degree of initiative. I found nearly all of the trips and programming provided by Aardvark to be sub-par. While the tour guides were mostly great and knowledgeable, there were not tour guides on every trip and many of the trips were too short or too biased to be valuable to someone who wants to know more than the bare-minimum about only the most popular sites in Israel.

Aardvark's internships, non-trip programming, and classes also left much to be desired. Unless a student was able to utilize connections or their own searching to find an internship, they were left with opportunities that I would not consider worthy of taking a year off of my education for. While fun and fulfilling, the internships were generally unrelated to a student's field of interest and provide little future value. The non-trip programming was juvenile and one-dimensional in all but a couple of instances. The classes should not be accredited by any university and are in no way a substitute for a year of university. The options are very limited, the quality of instruction is low, and the classroom environment is unsuitable for real learning, not to mention extremely COVID-unsafe during Fall 2020.

The staff structure is hierarchical, with the madrichim doing the most participant interaction and being responsible for putting on most programming and then non-madrichim staff filling various other roles such as academic director, internship coordinator, and director. Most of the staff were very nice and did their best to help participants when they needed it, but the staff as a whole were very unorganized and for more serious issues took days or weeks to address them. The rules are also seemingly random and enforced unequally in many situations, with staff sometimes resorting to intimidation to enforce rules around class attendance but leaving serious infractions such as bullying and violence against other participants inadequately (if at all) addressed. The director of the entire program also resorted to ignoring student calls to action to address issues and victim-blaming.

Overall, this program is workable if you or your child has a lot of independence, initiative, and the ability to create a life for themselves outside of or not reliant on Aardvark. I enjoyed my year immensely because I had an internship, classes, experiences, and a social network outside of the program in addition to housing and friends within. If I had not had these and only had what the program provided, I would have left Aardvark and, unfortunately, Israel.

I would rate this year 10/10, largely due to the fact that I was in Israel during COVID and blazed my own trail for a lot of experiences but also because Aardvark overall is one of the best Mada programs.

Biggest cons: the staff programming was juvenile at many points, the classes were far from university-level and questionably accredited, and the type of students who choose to come are so wide (due to coronavirus) that it ranged from curious, intellectuals to New York private schoolers who have never met a poor person in their life, which made community building and shared experiences hard to facilitate.

Biggest pros: the Tuesday trips were phenomenal with amazing locations and great history from qualified tour guides, the Jewish experiences were amazing and the program has an excellent Rabbi and learning options, and, lastly, the locations of the apartments are the best in the country, being Rechavia and Florentin. Overall, if you come to Aardvark for the right reasons, it will be the best year of your life.

I loved Aardvark Israel. This program allowed me to connect to my homeland while learning more about myself and building relationships with my peers. Not only did I explore the country each week, but Aardvark provided me with an incredible volunteer opportunity in which I interacted with children from all walks of life within Israel. My semester with Aardvark was, and will remain, one of the best four months of my life. The people I met through Aardvark became my
second family and I am beyond grateful.

Over the course of about 7 months, I made a lot of friends from around the world - and that’s what a gap year is all about. We went on many awesome trips and got to meet a lot of interesting people. Personally, I had a great experience at my internship working at a school for asylum seekers. There are few things I can knit pick to criticize about the program. If I could change one thing, I wish they could have mixed us in more with Israelis so we could have made more friends outside of the program. However this is up to you. During my free time, Some of the guys and I used to go to the basketball courts and play with Israelis. During my time in Aardvark I was able to learn Spanish while with some of the other students. Definitely worth it. Aardvark is dope, I would recommend it.

I had an abysmal experience with the staff of Aardvark. I suffered a moderate-severe injury while I was on the program. They were completely unsupportive of my medical needs. After countless appointments with different doctors in Israel, the staff still tried to undermine the severity of my injury even after it was confirmed by the doctor. Even worse they threatened to kick me out if I didn’t comply to their requirements for MY injury, I would think that would be the doctors/ my parents call. Would not recommend.

Aardvark Israel was the best experience of my life! It was through the program that I was able to gain new skills, experiences and greater independence. The support the program provided me by encouraging Ng me to pursue my own personal goals whilst creating lifelong a friendships whilst deepening my appreciation and love for Israel was astounding. The international trips exceeded my expectations, as well as the Hebrew and educational speakers which taught me so much more than I thought possible.

To me Aardvark was a year to truly find myself. I was surrounded by new people from all over the world, which pushed me to get to know others. I was given opportunities which without Aardvark I’d never be able to say (travel israel, learn about myself, have friends in every part of the world, etc). The list goes on and on when I think about my year with Aardvark, and I would kill to do be back in the same exact place for just one more day. Aardvark was without a doubt the greatest year of my life !