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These are youth that have chosen to postpone their IDF service in order to give a year from their lives to improve the Israeli society. The volunteer work is mainly dealing with education in three levels: community, the youth movement and society.

Throughout the year, Shnat Sherut volunteers are volunteering in different public frameworks such as boarding schools for troubled youth, after school welfare clubs, youth movement guides, in schools across the country and distressed neighborhoods. They each receive a minimal stipend to assist with their housing and food costs.
The majority of volunteer work is done in places where the main workforce is volunteer driven and the recipients are mostly children and teens that can't afford to pay for the activity or support of a private tutor, youth movement, after school and "Big Brother" type programs. In addition, the volunteers also assist with the programs geared toward the elderly and populations with special needs.

After the Shnat Sherut, each one of them joins the army to serve in different positions. The Shnat Sherut graduates serve in the best units and take on significant roles such as naval officers, pilots, and armory positions, warriors in the intelligence and infantry as well as educational roles. Afterwards, many of them are serving as commanders and officers. 
 

Nahal
Volunteers pre-select for service in this IDF corps, a specialized unit of core groups who combine pre-military training into Shnat Sherut and continue IDF service together through defined period of training for security missions as combat soldiers and social activists. In the past, the Nahal group’s special function concentrated on establishing new settlements along Israel's frontiers and more remote regions. Today, Nahal addresses the country's most urgent need of helping people and improving distressed neighborhoods by building up community leadership, promoting enlistment in the IDF among the youth, and giving much other positive practical assistance.

After serving together for a year in Shnat Sherut, all Nahal recruits undergo basic military training. The boys serve as combat infantrymen in Battalion 50 of the Nahal Brigade. Girls elect to serve either as combat soldiers in the Caracal Battalion, in combat support units, as training instructors or as IDF teachers. Afterward they all return to their special mission, as fully-fledged and experienced personnel representing both the IDF and Maccabi Tzair, adding more specialized social work responsibilities and immigrant absorption tasks to the list of activities noted above in the Shnat Sherut program.

Shnat Sherut Brochure