SASA Setton Organization

Who we are

SASA Setton is a leading educational and social organization dedicated to strengthening the resilience and education of children hospitalized in Israel. Believing that education is a healing force and an essential part of recovery, the organization works in partnership with the Ministry of Education and with hospital educational centers to create a supportive, innovative, and personally tailored learning environment. Through a professional network of facilitators and National Service volunteers, we give children the tools to cope with the challenges of hospitalization, help them maintain educational continuity and a daily routine, and strengthen their self-confidence and sense of capability even within a complex medical reality so that returning to their community and their home schools can happen more naturally.

Our pedagogical approach in the hospitals combines technology, creativity, and an empowering personal connection. Our work rests on the principle of living in partnership within a multicultural space, creating for hospitalized children a safe and inspiring environment in which they feel seen and that they belong. This environment is designed to strengthen their resilience and to give them an anchor of stability, preparing them for a successful return to the learning and life beyond the hospital.

In partnership with the Ministry of Education, we run three tailored core programs: the "Afternoon School," which offers science and technology clubs beyond formal school hours; the "School of Life," which provides tools for self-expression and 3D printing in psychiatric wards; and the "School of Light," which strengthens the recovery process in rehabilitation hospitals through music and canine-assisted therapy. Together, these centers preserve the educational continuity, sense of capability, and daily routine of hospitalized children.

An organization unlike any other

Israel is one of the very few countries in the world whose legislation specifically enshrines the right of hospitalized children to free education, guaranteeing them educational continuity even during illness. Since 2009, SASA Setton has worked to make this right a living reality, serving as the complementary educational response that puts the law into practice across 42 hospitals nationwide. We work in close partnership with the Ministry of Education and with educational centers on the ground, in order to broaden the learning and experiential offering for hospitalized children and to preserve the rhythm of their day.

Our distinctiveness lies in operating a comprehensive network of professional facilitators and instructors alongside National Service volunteers, who extend and enrich the school day for hospitalized children. Through our skilled teams — who bring expertise in fields such as robotics, technology, and music — we create, for some 150,000 children a year, as much daily routine as possible and the emotional resilience that serves as an anchor of stability and an essential part of recovery and of the return to the community.

Our vision

At SASA Setton, we believe that education is a fundamental part of the recovery of hospitalized children, and that it carries social, educational, and human value of the highest order. We see the preservation of educational continuity — and the creation of an unbroken link between the community and the child during hospitalization as the values that guide our work. For a hospitalized child, the encounter with knowledge, creativity, and personal connection is an anchor of stability within an unsettling reality. This process allows the child to preserve their identity, their sense of capability, and their sense of belonging, and to return to the community and to school more naturally — even in periods of medical and emotional uncertainty.