Hope, Therapy, and Inclusion at Shalva National Center

The Shalva National Center in Jerusalem provides transformative care and inclusion programs for individuals with disabilities.

Founded in 1990 by Kalman and Malki Samuels, Shalva grew from their own journey raising their son Yossi, who is blind and deaf. Now their personal experience has grown into a nationwide mission.

Through a long-standing partnership with CBN Israel, Kalman Samuels continues to share Shalva’s powerful story of hope, empowerment, and life-changing impact across Israeli society.

“So Malki's first program was an afterschool program, which she wanted to connect with,” Kalman explains. “The government gives in the mornings for special needs. The people that we will connected till the evening so that rather than a parent have to run a home at one, 2 or 3 in the afternoon, the parent could work full days. The children, the other children can come home and do homework with mommy and daddy. And when junior comes home, after having a lot of fun in the afternoon and therapy. They welcomed him happily at home. And the family's entire modus operandi changes this program, we didn't realize how much it was going to change things, but we suddenly had people banging on our door, ‘my son needs the program. My nephew needs the program. My my neighbor's family's falling apart. They need the program.’

So we gave it a name. We called it, Shalva, which is a Hebrew word mentioned once in the entire biblical writings in Psalm 122 verse 7, ‘May there be peace in your walls, Shalva. Peace of mind in your in your palaces.’

And in 2005, the government came and said, ‘look, we need to get a lot of kids into your programs and you don’t have rooms. If we give you a very big piece of land, would you build a very big center?’

When we saw the size and the placement of the land in the heart of the city, we realized that this, you know, our view wasn’t from them. It was from heaven that saying get up and do something.

Many years later, we completed what's called the Shalva National Center.

We have the facilities with a semi-Olympic pool, the full-size gym with therapy pools, with playgrounds, huge playground areas where these kids can take a break, go down to the gym and play ball, and all of our kids are at the pool. So, they have a very wonderful, wonderful environment.

And we serve everybody from this, from the entire spectrum of Israel. We serve first come, first serve. We've never cared about ethnicity, about religious beliefs, about financial ability. No one's ever been refused because someone couldn't pay something that Shalva asked for. There's no such thing.”

Among those who received Shalva’s therapy was Katja, who fled the war in Ukraine with her daughter, Solomia, who has severe cerebral palsy. With no resources, the family didn’t know what to do until CBN Israel stepped in. Through the support of both Shalva and CBN Israel, Solomia is making progress that once seemed impossible—learning to crawl, play, and communicate with her family.

“We couldn't afford physiotherapy,” Katja shares. “Now we need to get new leg braces for our daughter because she is growing out of the braces. We got her over a year ago. CBN is covering this costs. They paid for the therapies. They help us with food. I really want to thank you for being with us. You've brought us such positive emotions not only to the children but especially to me.”