Leaders of Excellence
and Success
Sport – Bridge to Education – Striving to Excellence
Dr. Rutie Pilz Burstein, founder and CEO
"I was privileged to serve as CEO of the Wingate Institute for six years after having worked as director of sports medicine at the research center of the Wingate Institute. While in these positions I met children and youth for whom the world of sport was their whole world.
I met talented, motivated and self-confident young people at the Academy for Excellence in Sports at the Wingate Institute. I was closely exposed to the strengths of the sports world, a world that develops self-discipline and determination, the ability not to be deterred by obstacles along the way. At the end of my tenure I realized that sports would be a launch pad for children and teenagers in extreme life crisis situations who had mostly experienced failure and had dropped out from a number of educational frameworks where they were not visible and became "transparent".
For these young people sport is the first opportunity to experience success, to develop a sense of belonging, competence and self-awareness.
The Sports Excellence Program
Why is there a need for an excellence program?
The girls and boys who take part in the program in the youth villages, experienced repeated failures and disappointments in their childhood, as the educational systems were unable to find ways to challenge them and to match their interests with their abilities.
The sports excellence program exposes the trainees to a path which allows them to implement skills and strengths, face challenges and develop meaningfulness. As part of the program, our trainees accumulate achievements and experience small successes that gradually produce a sense of self-confidence, skills unknown to them in their past.
The Sports excellence program is a unique educational program developed by Sport - Bridge to Education, it combines the values on which sports are based and assimilates them as life skills: building faith and a sense of belonging, self-discipline and responsibility, marking goals and striving to achieve them, dealing with failures and successes.
These values are embedded in the training, and gradually affect other areas of life: avoiding negative behavior, enhancing positive behavior, improving academic achievements, and leads to our program's graduates' decision to serve a significant service in the IDF or to enlist into the National Service.
The program is implemented exclusively in youth villages and boarding schools, where the chance of influencing the participants is better, compared to programs that operate in an open framework within the community.
The program doesn’t only affect its participants, but also influences those who do not take part in the program and also the village educational teams.
We set off with a clear theory. We assumed that in each and every one there is a spark of talent and ability, waiting to be discovered and to be believed in. We chose sports as a world founded on values which are skills for life: Excellence as a compass for life, believing in one selves and in others, credibility and commitment, endurance and courage, respect for myself and for my environment. These are unfamiliar and new values to our trainees, but through training and sports they become an integrated part in their daily activities. The Program we build sets high goals and requirements which are not suitable for each and every one of the village's participants. We've created an elitist program which forms a kind of leadership unit in which its participants develop a sense of belonging and team spirit.
Goals and objectives
The persistence of the program's trainees and their commitment to its challenging rules, indicate a significant change in their behavior manifesting itself through increase of motivation and willingness to commit and take responsibility.
The sports excellence program is running for the eighth year in a row, approximately 160 trainees participate in it each year.
Graduates of the program are accepted into a pre-military preparatory program, complete a challenging training process there for 6-12 months and are all recruited into combat units.
The trainees of the program avoid negative behavior.
They improve attendance at school, complete and graduate from High School with a general or technical 12 year Bagrut Certificate.
Many report that they have stopped smoking, and some testify that they no longer need medication due to ADHD.
Sgt. Meir Dayan, a graduate of the excellence program from the Neve Amiel Youth Village, was chosen as outstanding representative by Israel's President on the 75th Independence Day of the State of Israel.
Graduates of the program in regular and reserve duty are currently fighting in the Gaza war.
Some girls of the program are integrated into national service, and some enlist for full military service in the border police or an IDF commando unit, such as OKETZ.