Ubuntu Mentoring Educational Fund
Hi friends, join me in making a difference by supporting a good cause! I'm raising money for New Mexico Women’s Global Pathways a flagship program educational and job skills training program of the Immigrant and Refugee Resource Village of Albuquerque and any donation will help make an impact. Thanks in advance for your contribution to this cause that means so much to me.
Ubuntu Youth To Youth Mentoring
Program - Pilot
Definition of Ubuntu that was coined in my country South Africa
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zulu_language
Hello and thank you so much for
considering my request for funding. I would like to take this opportunity to help
resettled children as it relates to their
education - a Youth To Youth Mentorship
program.
After the pilot program ends in
May, this program will be open to youth
who are at risk including refugees,
immigrants, locals and asylum seekers. This will also depend on how much funding our
organization receives. This pilot project
started in February this year.
Funds received for this pilot request is for
giving stipends to four young adult
mentors, who speak and read English and
are in high school or college. They speak
and write their mentees’ languages which
are Swahili, Kinyarwanda, Kibembe and
Kirundi.
They are making sure mentees attend
online tutoring three times per week and
will help them as they learn English via Rosetta Stone, which will be purchased from
funds donated.
The mentors attend online tutoring with
their mentees as much as possible to
interpret as needed. Mentors also
receive help with their homework.
Each mentor is assigned a community
mentor to help her/him with their college
or high school work.
Why This Program
Since the beginning of 2007, the board of
directors of my foundation, Immigrant and Refugee Resource Village (IRRV), Lungile
Sinandile and I, have been tutoring and
working directly with dozens of youth.
These young people, specifically within the African Refugee Community, alongside
community volunteers, host a tutoring
program up to three times a week.This
effort takes place in partnership with the
Albuquerque Academy and community
volunteers.
As we have been beset by Covid and its
consequences, the very severe gaps in
education that existed before have been
laid bare. Our young people struggle to
acquire English, both spoken and written,
for understandable reasons. Covid has only exacerbated these difficulties.
Since 2012 years the Albuquerque
Academy has provided 2 hourly tutoring
(weekly) sessions and are still tutoring
( 20 available tutors). Cottonwood Classical Preparatory School joined online tutoring
last fall ( 23 available tutors).This resource now represents around 43 tutors.
From our extensive experience, we know
that the majority of our refugee, asylees
and immigrant community children pick up spoken English quickly. To our dismay, upon closer interactions with some of them, they do not understand written English. Even as they graduate from high school, many
struggle a lot. When they have mentors to
help them understand English content they thrive. In this way, IRRVA bridges these
gaps.
There are a few more very concerning
observations that we have made since
November last year specifically within the
African community. Many of the children
do not know how to do math, which on top of their lack of reading skills in English may present a nearly insurmountable obstacle
to their success in this country.
The majority of these children do not sign in or attend zoom classes and those who join
do so that they might get help with
homework. At times tutors even end up
doing homework for the children.
Wi Fi unavailability (at times) interferes
with online learning. In addition, a lack of
support from parents, most of whom do not know English and are not familiar with computers,renders children who are really
struggling with reading, writing,and
arithmetic. .
The children need help to realize that not
knowing how to write and read well
hampers them from being successful in
their academic life, but also in almost every area of life in the United States.
It was with all of this in mind that I created
a Mentor program, with refugee high schoolers or those in college mentoring those
from Middle school up to high school.
As part of this program , we find mentors to assist the mentors, who are in first or
second year of college and are struggling
because of their own diminished English
language knowledge.
The budget we have in mind would provide stipends for 4 Refugee Young Adult
Mentors for February, March, April and
May. This amounts to $14,000.00.
While we have the promise of $3,000 from a local partnering organization, we at
IRRVA have paid for the first three weeks
ourselves. I am writing grant proposals that are due mid February through May. I have
also been appealing to the community for
help with securing funds. It is with this
purpose in mind that I have reached out to
you today. We at IRRVA are so thankful that you have taken the time to read our request. We pray that you will find it in your hearts to fund our programming, which clearly is
so desperately needed. Thank you.
https://www.krqe.com/news/albuquerque-metro/immigrant-and-refugee-resource-village-of-albuquerque-offers-youth-mentoring/
Organizer
