SUNY Students Visit BGU for Disaster Prep Course
SUNY Students Visit BGU for Disaster Prep Course
January 26, 2015
Homeland & Cyber Security, Medical Research
Mid-Hudson News – Graduate students from SUNY New Paltz and Ben-Gurion University of the Negev recently participated in a week-long workshop in crisis counseling and psychological first aid.
The international partnership with the Institute for Disaster Mental Health at New Paltz began when BGU Prof. Richard Isralowitz invited the New Paltz students and Institute Director James Halpern to Beer-Sheva. During the trip, students from both schools completed coursework in disaster preparedness, response and recovery.
The course included excursions to communities in conflict as well as cultural sites like the Holocaust Museum and Jerusalem Old City. Students were brought as close as possible to the villages on the Gaza border and met with agency heads and officials from USAID in Tel Aviv, who were in charge of mental health, children and other vulnerable populations.
Halpern says the towns have been regularly hit by rockets and are often threatened with most of the people spending time in shelters.
“The class work completed at Ben Gurion University was an extraordinary, unique and beneficial learning experience for me and my fellow SUNY students,” says James DeArce.
Raya Truman, an Israeli student, called the workshop “one of the most interesting courses I’ve learned in the M.A. program.”
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