Prime Minister Ehud Olmert this evening at Latrun, attended the Project Atidim (http://www.atidim.org/eng/) 2008 main event (http://tinyurl.com/459lps).
 
Prime Minister Olmert thanked Project Atidim’s founders and many donors, who have worked to give equal opportunities for disadvantaged youth to exhaust their potential.  He then spoke to Project graduates: “I am proud that Israeli society has citizens who, being under no obligation, nevertheless know that we have one very important treasure – and that is you.  These are people with great heart and the result is that all of you have the opportunity.”
 
Prime Minister Olmert continued: “While we are a country that has jumped ahead quickly in recent years in the economic sphere, we must also resolve social problems.  This year, for the first time, the goal of the 2009 budget is growth in order to reduce gaps in Israeli society.  We will invest more in education, in children at risk, in the periphery, in toddlers and in all those things that have brought you to the IDF better prepared, better qualified and more successful.  And when you succeed more, the State of Israel succeeds more and will bring peace to our nation and to the entire region, and will turn it into the paradise it can be.”