Congratulations to Middle School students, Sophia Lurie and Sheila Sterenfeld, for winning this year's CADENA Initiative: Call for Ideas competition that took place last Friday, May 22, through Zoom. Based on the pillar of Tikkun Olam, repairing or changing the world, this competition encourages Middle School students to come up with ideas that address the question: How can we prevent the consequences of a natural disaster or humanitarian crisis? Under the guidance of their Science teacher, Mr. Javier Gonzalez, the HA team created an initiative titled, “Captain Disaster”. This initiative would use games printed on the back of cereal boxes to teach children in vulnerable communities how to be prepared and react before, during, and after a natural disaster. Their project focused on improving the preventive and resilience capacity of communities so that the impact of natural disasters in such areas could be diminished. Our students competed against six other teams from five schools in South Florida and succeeded to win First Place. As the winning team, the HA students will travel to Mexico, for the final global competition in May 2021, where they will represent Florida with the 2021 competition winner. The winning team in Mexico will have their idea developed into a real product that will help underprivileged communities from around the world. Second Place was also awarded to HA students Menachem Hazan and Ariela Jaimovich with their project, "Let There be Light," for creating an affordable solar lamp using recycled materials and solar panels for only 86 cents. This is the third year that Hebrew Academy has won the top prize and we look forward to representing Florida in the international competition. Mazel Tov!
