Personal Stories: Yuri

Yuri: Moving Away but Staying Close: “I’ve been participating in Ulpan classes at the Deaf-Blind Center for several months now, and they’re really helping me learn Hebrew. Since we came to Israel from the Ukraine several years ago, I’ve been living with my mother in Kiryat Gat. But now, I’ve received the OK from National Insurance to move into an apartment in Ofakim. Of course, I’m very excited about living independently, but Ofakim is much further from the Center in Tel Aviv. So I’ve decided to stop going to evening Ulpan classes – and transfer to the morning class instead so I won’t have to travel at night, since I have night blindness. Do you want to know how seriously we take this class? One of my classmates, Sasha, had to have brain surgery. But just a few days after he was released from the hospital, he was back in Ulpan!”