volunteers at Kibbutz Yotvata
Reut Parnes, volunteers coordinator in Yotvata
Kibbutz Yotvata,
located approximately 40 km north of the Red Sea and Eilat city, is
the first Kibbutz in the Arava. Yotvata falls under the jurisdiction of Hevel Eilot
Regional Council and is the center of the region, where most
regional facilities are based: regional school, community center, sports
center, movies and more...
In 1957, Yotvata was
established as the first kibbutz in the southern Aravah region .The kibbutz is
named after an Israelite encampment mentioned in the Bible. The founders, a
small group of men and women 20 years of age, decided to pursue a life of
pioneering and built their home in the desert, on the Arava road in the south
of Israel. The Arava valley is an arid desert where the average annual rainfall
is less than 30 mm and temperatures often exceed 40 °C in summer, and 21 °C in
winter.
Most adult residents in
Yotvata work on the kibbutz in production, services or education. The revenues
are equally distributed among the members regardless of their position. Most of
daily affairs are conducted communally - education, holidays, dining (three
meals a day conducted in the commune dining-room) and more.
Yotvata Dairy
is a milk products factory which provides the kibbutz with its main source of
income and occupies the highest number of members. Agriculture branches are irrigated land (onions,
potatoes, animal feed, garlic and more), plantations (dates) and a
big and modern dairy farm.
Kibbutz Yotvata has
around700 residents, among them around 23 international volunteers, who
work mainly in gardening and at the services of the cafeteria, dining room,
carpentry, minimarket, dairy farm, laundry, Horse farms, agriculture and field
crops. Yotvata has always enjoyed the volunteer company and today it is nice to
continue the tradition with a second generation of volunteers who follow their
parents or volunteers who are brothers / cousins of volunteers from the past.
This is a video made by Kibbutz Yotvata Volunteers to show an example of one day as a volunteer.
