Our Volunteers
Laura Lee Burch - Dolls & Sewing instructor
"I’ve been creating my whole life, it’s a lifestyle for me. I’m from a small town in Indiana USA, I now live in Jaffa, Israel with my three daughters and my husband.
My art is an expression of a positive place that I choose to be; I express myself through art. As much about visually and tactilely entertaining the viewer, I aim to achieve realism and sometimes humor and I want the viewer to be delighted, sometimes informed or made to think about an issue as they experience my art. I try to help people and animals through my artistic endeavors by raising and donating money from the sales of my art . I have been teaching the women of Kuchinate in Tel Aviv how to make dolls and other sewn products to sell, to support themselves."
Artal Rylski - Coordinator for the Children’s Center
Artal is an Occupational Therapist with 30 years of experience in treating and managing services in the special education system.
"Becoming a pensioner allowed me to give my time and expertise to the asylum seeker community. My time here at Kuchinate is the most significant time of my week".
Miriam Alster - Photographer
Miriam has worked as a documentary photographer since 2008, when she made Aliyah from Sweden. For the past 13 years Miriam has been working as a staff photographer at Israel’s largest news photo agency, FLASH90, which has covered most of the past years' news events in Israel and the West Bank, been published daily in Israeli media, as well as featured internationally in magazines such as le Monde, der Spiegel and the New Yorker. After seven years in Jerusalem, Miriam moved to Tel Aviv, where she first met the women of Kuchinate. In 2017, she began documenting their work, which later became part of the exhibition "We were once all refugees," alongside photographs of Anna Riwkin. Miriam immediately fell in love with the warm and hopeful atmosphere surrounding the women, along with Kuchinate's vivid colors and creativity, working as an in-house photographer ever since.
Claudia
Claudia arrived in Kuchinate around mid-202: in the middle of Corona, and in the middle of a deep sense of isolation.
"At Kuchinate I arrived at home. The dynamic between the women creates a feeling of lightness, togetherness, joykuchinate is a spirit. It works for you if you give yourself to be with it. My volunteer experience is open to the necessities of the day. From driving, sewing, cataloguing, presenting Kuchinate during events… I enjoy that way. It demands different skills each time. Bless Kuchinate and bless the influence it has on all the wonderful women that are close to its spirit. I have made new friends I communicate in different languages and I am inspired each time by the creative drive in Kuchinate. Nothing is given for granted each time each day every one reinvents herself. Creating new ideas and opportunities. It is an honour for me to be part of all this. I am in touch with the force of life at Kuchinate"
