The National Center of French-Speaking Students in Israel

The National Center of French Speaking-Students in Israel or CNEF (Centre national des Etudiants francophones en Israël, in French) is nonprofit organization that assists French-speaking students who have emigrated to Israel.
The CNEF provides assistance on social, cultural and material levels.
General overview
The organization was founded in 1987 by a group of "Our Hope" (Tikvatenu) graduates - the youth movement of the Consistoire in France - who immigrated to Israel and sought to continue their volunteer work. They then decided to help immigrant students (90% of whom immigrate alone) and, notably, their absorption in higher education institutions. The CNEF's belief is that a successful absorption of immigrants during their early years is key to a sense of belonging, and thus loyalty, to the State.
The CNEF chose to focus on the student population precisely because of the importance of French success in academic studies.
In its early years, the organization operated in a relatively limited format, consisting in student support, especially on campuses in Jerusalem and at Bar-Ilan University. Over the years, it further expanded its activities and addressed larger audiences of young French-speaking populations. The organization currently handles more than a thousand young people in different institutions, and has expanded to other areas of immigrant absorption.
The CNEF's offices are located near Zion Square in Jerusalem and are open to the public.
Activities
The CNEF's activities are two fold:
* Targeting young people pre-immigration
* Supporting students and young people in their early years of immigration - most of the activity takes place in Jerusalem on campus, the Center, Ariel and the North, and is based on student volunteers. There are five regional centers and 30 instructors across the country.
All tasks in the organization are based on teams of volunteers who came to Israel in recent years.
Guidance and assistance
Info Center: The organization provides advice and guidance services to approximately 500 young people per year, those who immigrated as well as participants in various programs in the country. The service is available in the country via personal meetings and phone calls, as well as abroad through the Web site and email service. The center answers questions that arise from the moment a person decides to immigrate to Israel to the time they integrate various institutions.
Information fairs: the organization offers information fairs in the country and abroad for various audiences interested in immigration, and especially the specific area in which they are interested.
Seminars
The CNEF organizes Shabbat activities for all young people throughout the country, and smaller regional forums. These meetings allow young students and veterans to get to know each other.
Social activities
The CNEF organizes social activities designed for students across the country.
The main activities:
* Conference opening of the academic year: a festive conference for French-speaking youth, iwhere they can obtain information about immigration and absorption.
* Independence Day celebrations: a mass prayer at the Western Wall in Jerusalem and a trip that includes accommodation.
Lectures
The CNEF organizes various lectures on campuses across the country, in order to share knowledge on topics related to Israel and Israeli society. The lectures take place in three main centers: Jerusalem, Tel-Aviv and Haifa, and vary according to the requirements and type of population.
Voluntary Work
The CNEF occasionally organizes volunteer activities, such as packing food for needy families, lighting Hanukkah candles with Holocaust survivors, visiting hospitals - and more. Such activities help immigrants create a special bond with the Israeli society without any sense of dependency.
Lone Soldiers
The CNEF has always assisted lone soldiers over the years. In 2009 it established a team of student-volunteers to support lone soldiers. The team works intensively and keeps the soldiers constantly connected, helps them deal with the military, with living arrangements and more.
Scholarships
In cooperation with other bodies, the organization began assisting students with financial difficulties.
Easing the Psychometric Entrance Test for immigrants
In light of the difficulties encountered by immigrants on the Psychometric Entrance Test, the CNEF along with other groups led a campaign at the Knesset in 2010 to change the form of the foreign language test. Among the main complaints made to Member of Knesset Zevulun Orlev were:
The test scores among immigrants (except for English speakers) was lower by 10% -20% than the average Israeli's
A distortion was observed in the equivalence process of French academic grades to Israeli grades
Hebrew tests were conducted with a turnover of 5 times a year, when most foreign language exams were held only once a year.
After meetings and discussions in the Knesset, three significant decisions were made:
An additional foreign language exam date was added
A number of questions were trimmed from the exam
A greater number of exam simulations in foreign languages are now available on the National Institute for Testing and Evaluation website

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