At ALYN Hospital, between long corridors and rolling laughter, one child shows what rehabilitation looks like when it is done with heart.
At Assif’s farewell gathering, during a small and moving ceremony held in the ward, his mother Anat stood before the staff and shared her experience, a moment that touched everyone and left no dry eye in the room.
In the afternoons, you can hear it, the laughter of a child. Assif rolls down the corridor, quite literally, surrounded by other children and National Service volunteers trying to keep up. Once a quiet and frightened toddler, he has become a child who leads, initiates, and above all, allows himself to simply be a child.
Assif arrived at ALYN as a toddler after being diagnosed with a congenital brain malformation affecting his motor abilities. He underwent surgery and began a rehabilitation journey whose outcome was uncertain. His family arrived with heavy hearts and many questions, but they quickly realized that the answers would not come through words alone, but through actions, through calling him by his name, meeting his eyes at eye level, and a clear sense that here they saw the child, not just the diagnosis.
“The moment they called him by his name and truly looked at him, I knew we were in the right place,” Anat shares. “I didn’t have to explain who he was, they already saw him.”
Rehabilitation was built gradually and at Assif’s own pace. Physical therapy, occupational therapy, and emotional support were carefully woven together, guided by gentle determination, consistency, and trust. And then, without any official announcement, something shifted. Assif found friends, laughed, played, and led. Anat saw a child who felt safe enough to blossom. He now knows every corridor and proudly shows visitors the therapy rooms, the school, and the learning spaces.
At ALYN, rehabilitation is a complete ecosystem, education, play, creativity, and advanced technology, allowing children to continue being children even within a complex medical process. Not putting life on hold, but integrating healing into it.
For the family as well, ALYN became a place where they could breathe. A place where everything is held together, from advanced medical care to the smallest human details, like a comfortable chair beside Assif’s bed for his mother Anat, who spent long nights by his side with optimism and strength that uplifted everyone around her.
For the family, ALYN is not just a stop on the road to recovery.
It is the place where Assif learned to laugh again, to dream, and to believe in himself.
A place where one child found a home, and with him, an entire family.