Ronny Douek
| Ronny Douek | |
|---|---|
| File:Ronny Douek.jpg | |
| Born | 1958 Haifa, Israel |
| Nationality | Israeli |
| Known for | Businessman, Social Entrepreneur and Philanthropist |
Ronny Douek (Hebrew: רוני דואק) known as Roni Duek (born 1958, Haifa) is an Israeli businessman, social entrepreneur and philanthropist. He has founded multiple social ventures, including Zionism 2000, Sheatufim and Uru, and has served as chairman of the Israel Anti-Drug Authority. Douek lit a torch at formal torch-lighting ceremony on Mount Herzl in Jerusalem on Israel's 60th anniversary.[1]
Contents
Social activity
In 1990, he founded Ach-Shav, an association which worked with new immigrants from the Former Soviet Union and Ethiopia.[2] Among others, Ach-Shav has established community centers in the caravan sites that provided provisional housing to the new immigrants in attempt to allow them to benefit from cultural and leisure activities. In 1994, he founded "Alter-Nativ", a national initiative for fighting substance abuse, which was later adopted by the Israel Anti-Drug Authority and became its flagship program for prevention of substance abuse by youth. To date, over 300 thousand teenagers participated in Alter-Nativ workshops in hundreds of schools and other educational settings across Israel.[3]
Zionism 2000
In 1995, in the wake of the assassination of Prime Minister Yitzchak Rabin, Ronny Douek and a group of friends founded Zionism 2000 as a civic movement that believes change is possible. Zionism 2000 runs a range of social projects across Israel to encourage individuals to assume personal responsibility for the creation of better society. Since its inception, Zionism 2000 has become one of Israel's most prominent social organizations, harnessing the good will of thousands of volunteers, educators and social activists, business people and philanthropists as well as hundreds of business corporation to help start educational and social ventures across Israel. One of the first projects initiated by Zionism 2000 in 1998 was ALEH, Hebrew acronym for "Business for the Community", which helps business entities become community engaged in the most professional, optimal and advanced manner.[4] ALEH volunteers currently support over 120 Israeli and international corporations in their partnerships with the third and public sectors with a vision of creating a more just and balanced society. ALEH also works with youth at risk to encourage business entrepreneurial spirit among them as part of the "Business Making" project. Another program run by Zionism 2000 is "City in Transition", which seeks to improve the quality of life in various communities with a system-wide model for change which is based on community empowerment and development of the social equity. The unique work model introduces a different managerial approach and working in broad roundtables that represent the three sectors of society to develop a shared vision and strategy, comprehensive and dynamic mapping to create the database, creating a budgeted work plan, and continuous measurement of effectiveness. All this is done in complete transparency and according to proper management practices. The Program results in a change that involves the three sectors (public, business and third sectors) to facilitate working with the community's organization to promote the quality of life with pooled resources and leveraging the unique strengths of each sector. "City in Transition" projects have been implemented to date in dozens of communities across Israel.
Sheatufim – the Center for Civil Society
Ronny Douek and partners from Zionism 2000, the Rashi Foundation, JFNA and the Gandyr Foundation established Sheatufim. In 2011, the Center was joined by the Haruv Institute and in 2013 Mr. Marius Nacht joined the Center's board. Sheatufim is the professional home and an information and knowledge center for civil society communities, including third sector organizations, philanthropy, social partnerships and civic ventures. It works to reinforce the civic society through the development of social administration, encouraging private philanthropy and promoting inter-sectoral discourse. Sheatufim helps social administrations and administrators to realize the purpose of their organization by becoming versed in social management, professional learning sessions and access to professional knowledge. The knowledge base is developed from the experience accumulated by social administrators, incorporating the input of the best experts in related fields. To encourage inter-sectoral discourse, Sheatufim provides the infrastructure for holding roundtable discussions of social-national issues according to the principles of sharing, equality and transparency, using the experience, knowledge and unique methodologies developed by Sheatufim. In philanthropy, Sheatufim encourages social engagement and donations from wealthy Israelis out of a philosophy of responsible social investment. To this end, Sheatufim holds learning and consulting meetings with donors, develops professional knowhow and works to increase the public awareness of the topic. Sheatufim promotes national ventures that work according to the collective impact models to expand the influence circles of social organizations.[5]
Uru
In 2010, Ronny Douek established Uru with a group of partners. Uru is a social movement that forms lobbying groups to influence the policymakers and prompt change in central national-social issues such as equal opportunity in education, equal civic burden and lawful administration.
Arava Vineyards Ltd. (Carmmei Arava)
In 1991, he founded Eilat Grapes Ltd., a first-of-its-kind venture with Kibbutz Eilot, which involves a vineyard on 50 hectares of desert land. He has also founded Arava Vineyards Ltd. an entrepreneurial company active in a range of fields.[3] Among others, Arava bought the Lodzia House ("the red house") on Nachmani Street in Tel Aviv in order to conserve it and transform it into an apartment house, and the Hanna House on Ben Gurion Boulevard in Tel Aviv. Arava is also involved in the development of the Negev with tourist ventures and is building the Shaharut Desert Resort on a hill overlooking the Arava Plain and Edom mountains, as a unique hospitality site in the desert.
Other public activities
- Chairman, the Israel Anti-Drug Authority, for three years.
- Joint chairman of the UJC General Assembly of the Jewish Federation in North America Conference in 2001 (Washington) and 2013 (Jerusalem).
- Member, the executive committee, the Rashi Foundation.
- Honorary Fellow, the Shenkar Institute: participated in the establishment of the Shenkar Institute for the Research of Design.
Personal life
Douek is a father of five children, four of them from his marriage to Evelyn, from whom he separated in 2003, and one child from actress Yael Abecassis, with whom he lived for several years prior to their separation.[6]
References
- ↑ State of Israel turns 60 YnetNews, 5 August 2008
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