The Israel Tennis Center
The Israel Tennis Center (ITC), a non–profit organization, has worked for 35 years to enhance the social, psychological, and physical development of Israeli youth through the medium of sport. We provide a healthy and structured environment for children from all walks of life, teach values of cooperation, self reliance and persistence, and provide opportunities for every child to reach his or her own level of excellence. The Israel Tennis Center has also received the coveted Israel Prize in 1989 and the Prime Minister's Award in the framework of the 60th Anniversary Celebrations of Israel in 2008 for extraordinary work with children throughout the country.
To meet its goals and aspirations, the Israel Tennis Center operates 14 centers complete with cutting edge courts and facilities, and caters to 13,000 children each week. Most of ITC Centers are located in disadvantaged neighborhoods or outlying development towns throughout Israel, from Kiryat Shmona on the Lebanese border in the North to Beer Sheva bordering the Negev Desert in the South.
Our Mission
- To give every child in Israel – regardless of background, religion or physical ability – the opportunity to learn the game of tennis
- To provide community development and outreach programs
- To promote and develop world class Israeli tennis players
Serving throughout Israel
- 14 Centers
- 178 all weather courts, including 3 indoor courts and 2 clay courts
- 13,000 children served each week
- 250 staff
- 30 psychologists and social workers
- 12 unique welfare and education programs tailored to different needs
- State of the art Residence Academy
- Largest tennis school in the world
- 350,000 graduates (5% of Israel's population)
A Leader of Social Change
We believe we are building a better society in Israel, using sport as the medium to affect social change. Thirty years ago tennis was played by an elite few. The Israel Tennis Center was established with the goal to take children off the streets and provide them with a normal childhood in a country that has always been besieged by wars and instability. By providing scholarships and subsidies to children whose parents were unable to afford their participation, the game was opened up as it had never been before.
In addition, the Israel Tennis Center has always addressed a variety of social needs, improving the lives of developmentally challenged, underprivileged and at-risk children and helping waves of immigrant children to gain confidence, transcend social barriers and gain a sense of belonging and identity in new surroundings.
The diversity of Israeli society, not only within the Jewish community but also with its non-Jewish and Arab populations, presents numerous social challenges. Research has shown that youngsters who grow up in regions of conflict are affected by the rhetoric of violence, with each group developing negative stereotypes of the other side. Since sport has the unparalleled ability to transcend barriers of language, politics and religion, we believe it is a powerful tool for promoting tolerance, developing productive cross-cultural relationships and ultimately, peaceful coexistence. We aim to alter negative perceptions while instilling positive ones, through joint sporting activities held for Jewish, Arab, Druze and Bedouin children. Our “Twinned Peace Kindergartens Program” with the Shimon Peres Institute for Peace brings Palestinian and Jewish children together in joint athletic development activities while in our "Marci-Lynn Bernstein Foundation Doubles Coexistence Program", Jewish and Arab children learn to play tennis together as a team.
Our Advantage
- Because of our geographical spread throughout Israel we are able to reach more children than any other non-government organization/non-profit organization.
- The children come to our centers in an informal environment making them more receptive to the educational content of our programs.
- Since we have developed an infrastructure countrywide, all new resources are directed to the children and not to overhead.
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The success of our programs has implications that reach far beyond excellence at sport. We seek nothing short of the chance to weave our core values of strength, self reliance and excellence, into a generation of Israeli children. We want to reach more children, to close the gap between children from vastly different backgrounds, and to teach leadership skills that will help the next generation of our children to shine. Join us!
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