MDA Volunteer follows her Great Grandfather's Footsteps
Ilana Smeltz volunteered on the MDA Overseas Program, 70 years after her great-grandfather volunteered as an EMT for Israel's National EMS Organization
Moshe Darevski was born in Poland and immigrated to Israel in 1933. In 1948 he fought in the Israel's War of Independence, and volunteered for many years with Magen David Adom in the State's early years.
Ilana Smeltz was born and raised in Brazil, and is studying medicine in Boston. She decided she wanted to follow in her great-grandfather's footsteps, and 70 years later, came to volunteer on Magen David Adom ambulances as part of MDA's Overseas Program, through the Jewish Agency's Israel Experience division.
The program, that sees some 400 young people train each year with MDA, on a two-week intensive training course where they learn to provide emergency first aid, followed by 6 weeks of volunteering on MDA's ambulances and mobile intensive care units all across Israel.
