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Journey's End Summer Program Helps Refugee Kids Prepare for School
Youth mentor Bilal Musse, a tenth grader from Somalia, and community volunteer Peggy Besant work with 10-year-old Mohamed, who recently arrived from Somalia.
Photo: Liz Garofano/JERS
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Put yourself in 10-year-old David's shoes. A refugee from Liberia, he just arrived in the United States and is going to school this fall for the first time.
David speaks English, but hasn't yet learned to read or write. And he doesn't have a clue about how to behave in a U.S. classroom.
Journey's End Refugee Services in Buffalo, New York, a Church World Service affiliate, designed its New Horizons Summer School for children like David (not his real name). He and 60 other refugee children, most of them in this country for less than 12 months, were enrolled in the six-week program this year. Houghton College provided teachers, who were stipended through AmeriCorps. The goal is a smooth transition into public school.
Recently resettled refugee children face a steep academic and cultural learning curve. "Often, when new arrivals start school, it's such a foreign experience that they shut down or act out in the classroom," said Liz Garofano, New Horizons Program Director. "That's why in our summer school, we address both academics and classroom behavior."
New Horizons Summer School was held in a Catholic school. Mornings were structured just like a typical school day, and afternoons were given over to art, theater, cooking and gardening -- activities "that are just as valuable to help them develop," Garofano said. Field trips included the zoo, library, and an art gallery.
As students were being tutored in English and math, they also were being coached in "things like raising their hand and standing in line, how to behave when doing a group reading lesson, lunchroom behavior, and the importance of cooperating with your peers."
Take David, for example. "He has a lot of emotional baggage," Garofano said, "and at the start of summer school, he was very disruptive in the classroom. One day he just left school and I had to follow him two blocks to get him to come back."
David's New Horizons teacher "patiently invested in him. He set up behavior modifications and rewards, worked with him and loved him. You could see the difference by the end. David had more understanding of a classroom routine and what's expected of him. And he was starting to read some words."
This year's summer school enrolled Somali Bantu, Liberian, Somali, Burmese, Cuban, and Vietnamese children, and Garofano commented, "That was exciting because the kids were able to form relationships across cultural groups. For example, a Vietnamese and Somali Bantu girl became good friends. They shared books with each other and encouraged each other."
Several innovations were introduced in 2006 over 2005, New Horizons' first year. "We decided we needed even more time," Garofano said, so summer school was extended by a week, from five weeks to six, and each school day was lengthened by two hours.
Last year, summer school was open to elementary school children only. This year it was open to pre-kindergarten through high school-aged students. And, for the first time this year, older refugee teens served as mentors.
 AmeriCorps teacher Ashley Beatty and students Aweso, Abdullahi, and Abdi take a break from working in the community garden, in which they planted and cared for vegetables and flowers throughout the summer. Photo: Liz Garofano/JERS
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Mentor Program
"Engaging older refugee teens who've been successful in their adjustment to help new arrivals is a piece that's often missing in refugee work," said Ernestine Aberle, a Journey's End board member and summer school volunteer from Clarence United Methodist Church, Clarence, N.Y. "This is sustainable work."
Nora Jacob, a 2006 graduate of Houghton College, designed and implemented the Mentors Program. "The 12 mentors, ages 15 to 18, were there to be cultural brokers for the teachers, who were all Americans, and to help with language and discipline," she said.
"For the students, mentors were authority figures who were a little less intimidating than the teachers, someone they could relate to and who could help them become comfortable with the teachers."
The mentors had their own 45-minute "enrichment time" together every day, including workshops on cultural diversity and different aspects of teaching, such as how to tell a story. "Having a meeting time every day was crucial, as was having time to bond outside of school," Jacob reflected. "This made such an incredible difference in the way they interacted. They brought that back to the students."
Next year, she said she hopes for a month with the mentors before summer school starts, "so they feel fully prepared for what they are going to face. This year, I was in school right up to the first day of planning. The mentors had very little training in being a teacher, so if it didn't come naturally to them, the teacher had to spend time telling the mentor how to do something. But once the mentors understood, they were able to help."
Jacob also hopes to offer the mentors a stipend next year. "We lost three mentors to paying jobs over the summer," she said. "As teens, I can't blame them."
Serving as a mentor clearly was a positive experience for Khadija Osman, 18, a Somali Bantu, who exclaimed, "I need to be in this program next year!"
Most memorable, said Osman, a high school senior planning to become a doctor, was the closing program, "because we were able to show other people what we had been working on."
Mentor Fato Ali, 16, also Somali Bantu, said she especially enjoyed spending time with the children outside of the classroom, such as on field trips to the zoo. Another highlight "was to go to Miss Nora's house where the teachers and mentors could have dinner and fun together."
Church Involvement
Another innovation this year was to recruit six congregations and ask each to sponsor one week of summer school by providing funds, volunteers, and snacks for a week. Last year, churches sent volunteers but they were assigned across the five-week program.
North Presbyterian Church in Williamsville, N.Y., took the first week, and team leader Ann Eisenlord said, "Even in five days we developed a connection with the children and were able to notice a change in the children's behavior and outlook.
"The first day, there were very uncertain expressions on the children's faces. By the end of the week, they were interacting more easily and appropriately.
"Many of the kids are way behind academically -- but not intellectually," she emphasized. "Once the kids get going and get caught up academically, many of them excel."
North Presbyterian Church provided financial support out of its share of an annual denominational offering for children at risk, youths, and young adults. "The offering brought in more money that Sunday than it ever had before," Eisenlord said. She added that the church also stipended a high school senior to work in the summer school, commenting, "It's a way you can help someone with both a summer job and a window into the real-life part of being involved in mission."
 Mothers Program participants Martha Beayou, Fatuma Ahmed, and Marian Chivala (left to right) embellish flip-flops with fluffy yarn, one of their craft projects Photo: Liz Garofano/JERS
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Mothers Program
Polly Tice directed the Mothers Program, another New Horizons' "first" this year. "It was to help them feel more at ease with English as their children are learning," she said. "My desire was to help them feel comfortable in settings like school and the grocery store interacting with Americans."
The six Somali Bantu, Somali, and Liberian women worked on everyday vocabulary, did a scavenger hunt at a local grocery, and played food bingo. "We had the real food for them to taste," Tice said. "Cantalope was not the big hit we thought it would be, but bagels were, which surprised us."
The mothers all got library cards and soon were checking out books, CDs and DVDs. Each week there was a craft project, ranging from soap making to beading table utensils. Volunteers from Hamburg (N.Y.) Presbyterian Church brought sewing machines. Each mother made a dress along with costumes for the students' closing program, at which "they got to laughing and talking," said Hamburg's Dorothy Harrington. "They got the biggest enjoyment watching their children perform."
Story by Carol Fouke-Mpoyo
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