Our Futures are Not Determined Based on Our Zip Code

Alon Futterman
Talma Summer Program, Talma

TALMA is the leading Israeli program for excellency in English. It was founded by the Schusterman Foundation, The Steinhardt Foundation and the Israeli government in 2014 to empower children by enhancing their English abilities. Alon Futterman, one of the main founders, was awarded “Israel’s ‘40 under 40’ most promising and influential people in 2018” by Globes Magazine.

TALMA brings together teachers from all over the world and Israel to provide summer English studies to elementary school students from low-income communities.

TALMA’s flagship program is an immersion summer program for Israeli elementary schoolchildren, which was a resounding success in 2018. Since then, TALMA successfully expanded its footprint from 70 schools in 10 communities in 2017 to 100 schools in 18 communities. The number of participating non-Israeli teachers, Israeli teachers and principals have increased by 53% to a total of 400.

For the upcoming year, TALMA has expanded its summer program into 30 low-income towns, serving thousands of underprivileged students of all sectors, expanded its full-year program to additional towns, and has opened more English courses for adults affiliated with sectors that do not teach core subjects between grades 1-12, speficially those seeking to integrate in the workface but have a knowldege barrier.