What We Do

Reviv uses the kitchen as a practical platform for health, resilience, learning, belonging and opportunity.

Our model brings hands-on food experiences together with knowledge from public health, education and community practice. Rather than only talking about change, the kitchen creates a place to practice it.

 

Our work focuses on four areas:

 

1. Social-Emotional Learning

Some skills are difficult to learn through conversation alone.

In a kitchen, participants have to plan, choose, wait, manage mistakes, ask for help, work together and try again. That makes cooking a natural setting for practicing social and emotional skills.

In Reviv's programs, children and youth experiencing challenges in school come to our kitchen to work in small groups and move through an ongoing process using cooking and baking. The recipe provides the starting point; the learning happens in everything around it.

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What do we practice?

• Confidence and self-efficacy
• Communication and teamwork
• Independence and responsibility
• Working through frustration and mistakes
• Persistence and flexibility
• Belonging and connection

 

Reviv currently runs ongoing small-group programs in partnership with schools and educational frameworks across the Negev. Our approach emphasizes repeated encounters and consistent relationships rather than one-time activities.

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2. Supportive Employment

Work can offer much more than a paycheck. For young people who have struggled to find their place in traditional educational or social settings, meaningful work can provide an opportunity to experience success, responsibility and belonging.

Through Reviv's supportive-employment programs, teens take on real roles in our kitchens and cafés alongside a consistent and supportive team. They learn culinary and service skills, teamwork, reliability, problem solving and responsibility for a task from beginning to end.

But - the goal is not simply to learn how to work. Rather, it's to create a setting where young people can discover what they are capable of and recognize that they have a meaningful role within a team and community.

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Among the life skills our teens gain:

• Culinary and service skills
• Work habits and responsibility
• Teamwork
• Consistent relationships with supportive adults
• Opportunities for independence and success
• Belonging to a workplace and community

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At Lehem Zeh in Yeruham, our supportive employment program is run through Keren Kayemet L'Yisrael's "Planting Together" Initiative, in partnership with Rimon Farms and the local municipality.

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3. Professional Learning

Scaling our model requires more than running additional groups in the community. In order to reach more children and families, Reviv develops training for educators and health professionals who want to use food, cooking and food culture as practical tools for health, learning and wellbeing.

Our training combines professional knowledge with hands-on experience in the kitchen and helps participants adapt the principles to their own settings.

Educators

Training for educators and youth professionals explores the kitchen as a setting for social-emotional learning, relationship building, belonging and growth.

Health Professionals

Training for professionals in medicine, nursing, nutrition and public health connects clinical knowledge with food, culture and everyday life, helping make health guidance more practical, relevant and accessible.

Every professional who carries these tools into their own work extends the reach of the model far beyond a single kitchen or group.

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4. Health Promotion

For many communities in the Negev, distance, access, health literacy and trust can create significant barriers to early chronic disease detection and preventive care. This is particularly true for diabetes and obesity, two primary challenges facing the Negev population. 

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Beginning in 2027, Reviv and its partners are launching a multi-year initiative that brings early detection, practical health promotion and connections to continued care directly into the community.

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The initiative is led by Reviv together with Bar-Ilan University Health 360 Center, the Ben-Gurion University FoodLab and the Soroka University Medical Center Diabetes Clinic, alongside health-system, municipal and community partners.