YU Students Launch New Makor Inclusion Program

YU students have launched the Makor Inclusion Program to integrate participants of the Makor College Experience more fully into campus life. The initiative, set to begin in late February, pairs YU student volunteers with Makor students for weekly activities, including learning, socializing and club participation.

Makor Care & Services Network is a non-profit agency that provides services for individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities and their families. In 2017, Makor partnered with YU to create the Makor College Experience: a four-year, non-degree program for young men with intellectual and developmental disabilities on the Wilf campus. The program transitions students, typically between the ages of 18 and 25, into the next stage of their lives by providing professional and interpersonal skills. 

The new inclusion program, formed by Wilf students Yosef Pietruszka (YC ‘27) and Noam Schechter (YC ‘27), seeks to better connect YU students with Makor students. It currently comprises roughly 20 Makor students and 20 YU student volunteers. Each YU volunteer is paired with a Makor student, with whom they spend around 45 minutes each week learning, talking, eating and participating in many activities around campus. The program itself is flexible: the YU and Makor students are in touch one-on-one to initiate “hang-outs,” thereby creating a bond between the groups of students. 

Makor students seek to be engaged in campus life, but some have more difficulty getting involved than others, according to Schechter. “Makor students are on campus, but they’re in this weird purgatory where they are not really part of YU, but they are part of YU,” he told The Commentator. “By creating a bond between the Makor students and YU students, the Makor students become a part of the greater YU community.” 

“We want to try to bridge the gap, and we thought that this program would do just that,” Pietruszka told The Commentator. “It’s important to bring forth unity and achdus. Even if someone learns differently, talks differently or looks different, we are all one and the same. Especially in Judaism, we are all one nation.”

Not only can the YU student volunteers help Makor students, but they can also gain a new perspective themselves, Pietruszka added. “It’s also important for YU students to take part in this program because it shows students that we are all alike, no matter how different we may think we are,” he said. “It’s not only for the Makor students, it’s for the YU students as well.” 

A 2017 article in the YU Observer described the Makor College Experience as an opportunity for “inclusivity, growth and community.” According to Schechter, the new Makor inclusion program seeks to further that goal. “This program is about getting together and realizing that we can schmooze, we can learn, we can eat together,” he said. “We have what in common. We can be friends. That is the essence of this program.”

“Our guys love being a part of YU. It’s a dream come true for many of them,” Professor Stephen Glicksman, director of the Makor College Experience told The Commentator. “We hope that this program enhances their college experience even more, and are so grateful to Noam and Yosef for spearheading it.” 

Photo Caption: YU students with their friends from Makor 

Photo Credit: Aron Gidalowitz