WIZO Opens International 'Aviv' Leadership Training Seminar in Tel Aviv
Young Jewish women arrive from all over the world to attend international leadership training seminar and to experience the results of their fundraising first-hand. 
WIZO opened its international Aviv Seminar in Tel Aviv on Sunday November 2nd, a week-long conference aimed at cultivating young Jewish women's leadership. Attendees hail from 14 countries around the globe, including the US, England, Australia, Brazil, South Africa, Germany, Mexico and Panama. Aviv is a special subgroup of WIZO, which was launched to encourage and nurture the next generation of WIZO leadership. 
 
The seminar has many goals, amongst others providing participants with leadership and public diplomacy (hasbara) training, giving participants tools for effective event planning, fundraising and membership recruitment, as well as allowing for networking and the exchange of ideas between the emerging leadership of WIZO federations worldwide.   
In addition to attending seminars and workshops on effective fundraising, volunteer engagement, Israel advocacy and on the WIZO movement, participants will also be treated to visits around Israel. Destinations will include the Rebecca Sieff WIZO Centre for the Family, the Mahane Yehuda Market and the Western Wall in Jerusalem, a visit to the WIZO Nachlat Yehuda Youth Village, as well as sights and WIZO projects around Tel Aviv-Jaffa, where the conference itself will be held. 
Laurienne Baitz, Aviv Representative to the World WIZO Executive, explained the importance of attending the Aviv Seminar. "It's so empowering to come and see where the money [we raised] goes, who are the recipients of the hard work that we do… It's an important thing to see and be moved by the stories, to see with our own eyes… We want to feel the connection. The only return we want is to have tears rolling down our cheeks with joy and see that we're doing something, that we are fixing people's lives." 
 
 
 
 
 WIZO, the Women's International Zionist Organization, is a non-party international movement dedicated to the advancement of the status of women, welfare of all sectors of Israeli society and encouragement of Jewish education in Israel and the Diaspora.
 WIZO is an international movement of Zionist women, founded in England in 1920. Today, there are over a quarter of a million volunteers in 50 Federations throughout the world, working actively for the welfare of the citizens of Israel and providing help and support in the operation of hundreds of education and welfare projects and services.