About a very special project, which helps bereaved families at all levels of bureaucracy in a terrible situation they have found themselves in. With Liat Menashe, Service Manager at Strauss Water
To watch the full interview with Liat Menashe click here<<
Hi Liat.
Hi.
Hi.
Thank you for joining us. A terrible situation, and out of this need, a project was born that helps bereaved families. What does this project actually do?
So the project really helps bereaved families in the “Iron Swords” war in dealing with bureaucracy. After a loved one passes away, if I may give an example, God forbid, you have to deal with a wide variety of bureaucratic arrangements that are generally unpleasant, but certainly not for a bereaved family that has lost, God forbid, a son, or a widow who has lost her husband, and then has to start contacting the bank, the media company, sometimes the university, sometimes they don’t know where the gym was, and now they have to do something with the subscription, a truly wide variety of bureaucracy, which the mental difficulty of actually accessing…
There is an operation here, seemingly technical, but it is clear that in addition to the technical difficulty, there is also a very great emotional difficulty hidden behind it.
Exactly.
How is that? Born?
So it actually started long before the seventh of October. For many years, we have had a “service guru” named Huli Raz, who runs a group called “The Service Managers’ Guild” on Facebook, and this group has close to two thousand senior managers, VPs and various managers in various service companies in Israel. And this group is truly a kind of community where people learn from each other and contribute to each other.
In fact, in December 2023, Sharon Eshel, mother of the late Roni Eshel, who was a lookout in Nahal Oz, posted a post in the group that really broke all of our hearts and changed something in our perception, and I want to read it.
She writes… Sharon Eshel writes: “On October 7th, I lost my daughter. 34 days that we thought she was lost, and then she arrived The bitter news is that she will not return. The journey in the land of bereavement is so complex, painful and sad. Everything related to her brings us down every time: choosing her gravestone, receiving a death certificate, receiving her belongings, revealing her gravestone and more. It never ends and never lets up on us.
About three weeks ago, a letter arrived from the bank: In honor of the heirs of the late Roni, Eshel Roni z”l, I crashed to the floor, why does it say “rested”? Why is there “z”l next to her name? And inside it says that you need to make an appointment at the bank to come and close the account. Three hours of continuous crying.”
And she basically continues and asks the community: “Help us, the bereaved families, go through this journey in a softer way, help us with this difficult struggle.” This is a longer post, but this is its summary and it shakes and shakes us all.
And it was really important. December 2023, we were all shocked, yes, and hurt, and in fact some kind of conversation began, how do we respond to this, what do we do, what are we as organizations really doing to provide a different response?
To watch the full interview with Liat Menashe click here<<
So how does the project really work?
Basically, what happened following the post was that we realized that there really was some kind of vacuum here, and Khuli Raz, who runs the community, actually had some kind of vision, which I’ll tell you how it works in a moment, but she really did have this vision, and she contacted several people and she contacted me, and she asked if we wanted to be the central focus of this project, and I immediately told her yes. Then I went, of course, and received approval from Shimrit, the CEO, and Este, the CEO of the Water Group, and we did everything by the book, but it was clear that these were our values, the group’s, mine personally, of course, but also the Strauss Group’s, and that we would take part in this, there was no question. And from there, a journey actually began.
It was the end of December, and Khuli said: We’re getting up in a week. On January 7, which is actually three months into the war, she wanted us to get up already. A week. Fridays discussions, Saturdays in the evenings, really everything that is needed for it to happen, because we also understood the urgency and the pain. And the project actually works like this: We have service officers, that’s what we call them, who are actually volunteers and it can be any person with sensitivity. And it actually goes through a screening with us and an interview in the project, with people not from Strauss who interview, but other people, and it actually goes through a screening. There isWell, 350 service officers who actually come and are attached to a bereaved family that wants to receive help and assistance from us, and they approach the family, they sit with them, and they actually get from them the family’s needs, in which organizations it needs assistance. Now, it could be one time, it could be every time something comes up, but actually this service officer is in direct contact with the family over time, he accompanies the family, exactly.
Every time he has some kind of need, we have a digital form, and he uploads the request there. The digital form comes to us at the Strauss Water hotline, basically all the requests from all the service officers, 350 service officers since the beginning of the activity. All these requests come to our hotline, and we have real angels sitting with us who have a busy day-to-day job – this is our public relations team, who really do a sacred job. And they receive the referrals to them, and with 250 organizations in Israel, we actually have a referent who works with us.
Great, I mean you’ve actually created a network here within the group between the different businesses, just like that, you can actually contact a business entity to a business entity, and save all this great difficulty here, which is sometimes difficult even in everyday life, let’s be honest, but certainly in this terrible situation.
Absolutely, and in fact in every organization we have a person who is more senior, more sensitive, understands the situation, he receives the referral from us, he actually has to go back to the family, make sure to close the referral, and inform us that everything has been fully taken care of. And it really is different, if a family now needs to contact, say, some hotline or physically arrive somewhere, and now start telling the story with someone who probably just started working yesterday, and doesn’t even have the authority, and start explaining… This is a situation that we don’t want to happen. Faced with the possibility that someone who already understands what is involved contacts you, has all the authority, is sensitive, is experienced, is a veteran, is professional, knows how to give all the answers and treat sensitively and make sure to close the circle of care as well. And really, we are already treating over 700 families in the project today, and it is a project whose value is truly tremendous. There are also collaborations. We have collaboration with the Ministry of Defense, with Yad Labanim, and actually with other bodies in the country to create a connection with the families, and there is really a complete mechanism here that works. There is actually a deployment of service officers for families, there are people who are responsible for this, and there are those who guide the service officers, a truly complete mechanism, we have a system that actually spreads the gospel and truly amazing people who do holy work.
We look at all the involvement and mobilization of the business sector since the beginning of the war and it is very significant, and in Strauss, by the way, there are many dimensions that we also hosted in our videocast, but there is actually a focus here on specific expertise, in relation to a specific need, a connection between the two things, it gives it another very significant dimension. Tell me, I assume this is a situation that requires accompaniment, support even now from within the representatives and the representative office, how do you actually accompany the process from within?
That’s an excellent question, because there really is a lot of emotional difficulty here, and I’ll share it: There are also the service officers who actually within the project already receive some kind of reference in the training sessions on how to cope and how to approach the bereaved family and how to deal with the challenge, it’s difficult for the service officers too. And actually for us, so I can say that “Strauss Water” also operates in other worlds of contribution to the community.
For example, we donate hundreds of water bottles, we have inquiries from customers even in complex situations who have experienced complexity and we need to handle it. So we have teams here at Strauss Water, including this team that also handles these inquiries, who have received a kind of support from experts who know how to ventilate, listen, and provide tools.
This is very, very important. And unfortunately, I understand that the project is still ongoing, right? That is, we hope that it is already at a slightly different pace, but it continues.
The project continues, and unfortunately, more families are being added, and we try to reach each additional family so that they are aware of the service and can use our project.
In fact, even the 700 families that we are already treating may have another need and another need that arises.
I will give an example: There is a widow of an IDF soldier who, right at seven o’clock, suddenly received a call from the bank about her guarantee, and her husband was handling it, and she didn’t know what to do.
And at that A moment later, the service officer called her and introduced herself and she said to her: “You are my angel, he sent you to me.” And since then, she has used her to help with the bank, the media company, and her studies, and every now and then there was another need. And then there was another relative of the same family who was in need, there was a delegation of bereaved siblings and there was no passport, and we needed to quickly help get a passport from the Population Authority, so we helped with that too.
And really, whatever we can, as much as possible, whenever needed.
Everyone’s commitment is amazing,butthe part of the network here is also a very impressive dimension. What we used to do through friends or connections, so you’ve actually really established here a working network that knows how to reach, I suppose, most of the time The places.
Exactly. Everywhere. Even if we have some a smaller group, so there is always a group that asks how I can get there and they get everywhere. And I can also share with you that we had two conferences for the project, we hosted them at Strauss together with Khuli and all the partners, and a very large number of people came to each of the conferences, volunteers from all the organizations in Israel. Because it really is very connecting, and it was important for them to hear, to receive the tools, and there is also something emotional that is created.
Sure, and some kind of feeling that you are actually helping in a place where you can really provide significant assistance that you have expertise in.
And we also have more thinking to do going forward, I mean we are already working on some insights that we already have from all this activity for organizations on how to properly deal with bereaved families. In the end, we are currently providing this response to bereaved families from the “Iron Swords” war, but the same need exists, I think, for every bereaved family or for populations that really need to receive a broad response at some given moment.
I think this need exists and we are also thinking about how… I hope the moment will come when there will be no need for a project for the needs of the war, and we can really do more good things.
