SCoJeC is delighted to announce that our new £15,000 grant from the People’s Postcode Trust, a grant-giving charity funded entirely by players of People’s Postcode Lottery, will allow us to take talks and activities about Judaism and the Jewish Way of Life to schools and community groups around Scotland. The grant covers training for up to 15 new volunteers ambassadors, and travel and accommodation for our volunteers to visit up to 100 schools around the country including schools in the Highlands and Islands, many of which don’t have the same opportunities that mainland schools have.

Welcoming the grant, Fiona Frank, our Projects and Outreach Manager, said: “These additional resources will enable us to train more volunteers to deliver the positive, memorable, and educational activities that we have developed, to support them as they travel around Scotland taking our programmes into schools.  We’re very excited to be able to offer this opportunity for Jewish people to join in our training, and Scottish schools and community groups to take up the offer of a visit by a trained and accredited ‘Ambassador’.”

SCoJeC’s Volunteer Ambassador might be the only Jewish person that a Scottish child ever meets during their schooling, so we’re very keen to use this opportunity to challenge ignorance and antisemitism and help people to understand that Jewish people are ‘just the same as everyone else – just with a few different customs’.

All our sessions are fun, active, appropriate to the age of the group, and offer the chance to ask questions, experience something of Jewish life, and to interact with Jewish people. Judaism does not seek converts, and our aim is only to give a fair and honest representation of Judaism in Scotland today, and to encourage discussion and reflection.

Our sessions represent all branches of Judaism in Scotland, and we talk about the diversity of belief and practice within the Community, reflecting our belief that dialogue and mutual respect are the most effective way of enabling pupils to learn about Judaism and the Scottish Jewish Community.