This year, Ezer Mizion will once again be organizing summer camps for children with special needs and for children and parents with cancer and their families. The Summer Camp Project is one of the annual highlights of the ongoing activities Ezer Mizion arranges for these children and their families. The camps include exciting activities, performances by top level Israeli entertainers and visits to a wide variety of attractions across the country.

Camp for Chidren/Parents with Cancer and their Families
In the course of our long-standing activities with cancer patients, especially the younger ones, we repeatedly witnessed the powerful influence of positive experiences on the patients' health. Beyond the pure medical aspect, Ezer Mizion invests much effort in projects geared to boost the patients' morale and provide distraction, at least temporarily, from their pain. Throughout the year, the organization sponsors "Fun Days" and performances, as well as celebrations of the patients' birthdays. Doctors treating these patients are amazed each time anew at the dramatically improved blood test results that follow these "Fun Days" - for children and adults alike.

In addition, it is well known how much the illness of a parent or child impacts his family. When the entire family is involved in fighting serious illness, often those who are closest and most important are "left behind". The activities that are geared both for the cancer patients and their family members give the children themselves a chance to relax and, at the same time, to restore the delicate network of family relationships that may have been strained as a result of the repeated hospitalizations through the course of the year.

Sleep-away and Day Camps for Children with Special Needs
Ezer Mizion also carries on 5 summer camp projects for children with special needs. For these children, it is an annual opportunity to experience a variety of activities that bring them pleasure - activities that are out of their reach the rest of the year because of their medical handicaps. For the families of these special children, this is a golden opportunity to have a break for a few days from the constant care of these children - giving them a chance to renew energies, enjoy a vacation, and devote undivided attention to the rest of the children in the family.

Ezer Mizion volunteers spare neither effort nor expense in order to conduct these camps in the best, most professional and most responsible manner possible. In the course of the months of preparation and complex logistical planning, there is one objective that stands before them, and one only: to give the children the best time that they can, and to bring them as many opportunities for fun and happiness as possible in a secure setting.

This year, some 500 people will participate in the various summer camps and get-aways for children and mothers with cancer and their families. About 1,100 children and young adults with special needs will take part in the summer sleep-away and day camps for children with special needs, with at least one volunteer "shadow" assigned to each of the children.

Following is the schedule for Ezer Mizion Summer Camps 2009:

Summer Camp	Date	Place
Retreat for children and parents with cancer and their families	4 days Aug. 2 - Aug. 5	Giv'at Olga
Sleep-away camp for young adults with special needs	2 shifts of 7days each Aug. 2 - Aug. 15	Bnei Akiva Campus in Natanya
Sleep-away camp for children with special needs	10 days Aug. 9 - Aug. 17	WIZO Petach Tikvah Youth Village
Day camp for children with special needs (central Israel)	9 days Aug. 17 - Aug. 25	WIZO Petach Tikvah Youth Village
Day camp for children with special needs (Jerusalem area)	9 days Aug. 12 - Aug. 21	Jerusalem Area