TEL AVIV - Ilana Ziegler is executive director of the Israel Family Planning Association (IFPA), the Israeli branch of the International Planned Parenthood Federation.
Before she began to work at IFPA in 1996, she earned her B.A. in social work, her master's degree in community and social work, and a Ph.D. in demography.
In recent years, she has helped pilot IFPA's website, which now receives as many as 1.2 million questions a year from anxious Israelis from all backgrounds.
She has also been a driving force for a new "Open Door" forum for people who are physically disabled.
Ynetnews spoke with her about why she has chosen to educate people about sexuality and how it affects society in the modern Israeli state.
1. What is the most pressing challenge affecting the way Israelis deal with sexuality today?
We are overexposed to information that we can't decipher. We are both consumers and targets for messages without being aware of it. There are new fads every two months, and this blur of information can lower your self image. We even get questions from 11-year-olds who think that they are not developed properly.
To be a free person, you must be able to distinguish messages.
Another important issue is family relationships, and cementing the ties between parents and children, which are getting worse all over the Western world.
2. Which groups do you hear from in particular?
People come to us anonymously, whether rich or poor. Social class and status don't matter with sexuality. It is such a strong emotional issue that it can cause problems regardless of your background.
Questions are not only from people who are "sick." There is a lot of misery in the "normal" population, too. We address people's questions before they lose their place in the "normal" world.
3. How do your programs address these issues?
Our Open Door program answers questions in three ways: at walk-in Open Door centers, through phone-in questions, and through our website. Open Door is relevant even for those who have had an excellent sex education, because people need a place to go anonymously, that is free of stigmatism.
Questions are addressed by trained volunteers. We don't believe in youth answering youth, or older siblings and housewives answering youths. The people who come to us can get plenty of non-professional answers.
We also work with newcomers to Israel, using themes from different cultures to explain sexuality. In different cultures, there are different cues and symbols that, when misinterpreted, can make you vulnerable to exploitation and violence.
Those who don't understand laws about abortion and other sexual topics also can be exploited and misled. We work with populations at risk, and it helps them integrate into Israeli society.
We give workshops on behalf of different ministries and the Jewish Agency, because it's more cost-effective for the country to educate people about sexuality and abortions than to deal with the consequences of not educating people.
4. Why did you choose to work for IFPA?
I left university to make changes on a global scale. I wasn't interested in casework. I'm more interested in social change, and impacting individuals.
I choose to work with sexuality because it's a universal language that is equally challenging to all people.
It's fulfilled me as a social worker. My demography background helps me understand growing populations, and create cost-effective evaluation systems and programs.
5. Why is an Open-Door program for physically disabled people necessary?
Many people look at a disabled person as someone who is miserable. There is something in your life that people regard as a problem.
Instead, our program looks at a disabled person as a normal person who must fulfill his or her sexuality despite a certain obstacle. We try to help people change their attitudes, and look at their obstacles as part of life.
We teach people that they must take responsibility for their own lives. It's not their destiny to be physically disabled, just the starting point. They can take advantage of everything that the world has to offer.
We also have groups for parents of physically disabled people, many who think they need to make decisions for their children. Parents need to know their limits, and to let their children grow and make mistakes.
6. What are the tools you use to create successful educational programs?
To bring about change, you need to equip people with life skills and teach about relationships: how to deal with people, to be assertive, and to understand when you are being exploited.
You don't need to make restrictive laws limiting people's behaviors (with regards to drugs, alcohol and sex), but you need to educate people to deal with what they are exposed to. People need someone to tell them that even in the worst-case scenario, they have choices and can take responsibility for their own lives.
For example, some schools teach about contraception, but that's not the central issue. Teens need to know how to use it: What are the obstacles? What is the decision process? How do you negotiate the use of contraception with your partner?
If we just focus on isolated issues there are no behavioral outcomes. Sex education is a process, not a lecture.
7. IFPA also works in Israeli Arab communities. Has the Open Door program also been successful there?
The Moriah Fund has sponsored our "Open the Doors in Arab Society" project for the last five years. When we started, there was no infrastructure to address issues of sexuality. So we built it: we trained professionals, and now there are about 300 sex educators that have completed at least a 112-hour course.
It's been successful since it's in Arabic, the population's own language. People's comfort levels are higher in their own language, especially when discussing sensitive issues.
8. Do you want to expand IFPA's activities to other communities?
I want to create programs for elderly people. There is so much exploitation of elderly people, in senior citizen homes and elsewhere. There are intimacy issues and more, and it's an area that no one is addressing.
We also need to represent Israel in the United Nations. Israel can be a "light unto the nations" on the issue of sexuality. We are an experienced organization, and people around the globe can learn from us.
