NFTY’s Tikkun Olam Awards (TOAs) aren’t an award, per se, but rather, they are a series of annual competitions made to recognize creative and effective TYG programming based around the NFTY Study Theme. These competitions are run in two steps: first, every region will run its own Study Theme programming competition, typically also called the TOAs. While regions may choose as many as four TYGs to be honored each year, one from each region will be nominated for the North American Tikkun Olam Award. These nineteen programs will then be reviewed by a Committee including myself, and this committee will choose one winner and a number of honorees who will receive the official Awards and who will be announced at NFTY Mechina in June and following that, to all of NFTY.
Two of the greatest things about the TOAs, in my opinion, are how easy it is to enter, and what an impact it can have. Really, all you have to do to start is make a couple of phone calls. Because every region is in charge of administering its own regional competitions, they all run a little differently. The best thing to do to start off, is to go to the PVP and Regional Advisor Contact Information 5767-5768, to your regional webpage, or to Facebook, get the contacts for your regional PVP and Advisor and give them a call. Ask them how it works in your region, what tips they might have, and how can get started off. Then it’s a matter of using the NFTY Study Theme page and the Programming page for a groundwork and working with your TYG to write and lead the best program you can on the NFTY Study Theme. By writing and leading hundreds of TYG Study Theme programs, we as NFTYites can help our peers to learn more about topic chosen by NFTY to be our guiding subject for the year, and through this learning, to find themselves and their Jewish identities. These programs, although potentially small, can have a great effect on how people see themselves as Jews and on how they choose to relate to Judaism for years to come. Through knowledge, we can help to bring our world together.
B’ahavah v’shalom,
Benjamin Judah Phelps NFTY Programming Vice President 5767 – 6768
