Community Engagement

Forge Tutoring

Forge is an organization focused on advocating for refugees in Pittsburgh, matching local refugee families with students to aid in English learning and be a support during the acculturation process. Two other women and I were matched with a lovely family from Eritrea. While we’d expected to go and mostly just play with the little kids, we learned the first day that the father saw us as the English tutors, waiting for our lesson for the day. Helping this man learn the basics of English speaking and grammar has been one of the most challenging but exciting experiences I have ever had. We’ve had to come up with creative non-traditional methods of explaining lots of English words and sentence structures. The best part of this work is seeing this gentleman’s motivation and desire to learn, regardless of how challenging feat this can often be.

 

 

Global Medical Brigades - Honduras

In summer of 2016, I had the opportunity to go to a rural town in Honduras with Pitt’s Global Medical Brigades. Our group met up with a local GB team, and together we set up a health clinic with various stations such as triage, dentistry, physician check-ups, and a vision station. Some of the patients told me that they’d traveled 1-2 hours to be seen at the clinic that day. The vision station was one of my favorite aspects of the clinic- seeing the faces of individuals as they’d put on a set of glasses for the first time, was absolutely priceless. wn

While it was a nice opportunity to volunteer abroad and work towards a mantra of sustainability, it was also very enjoyable to engage with the local GB team. During the day we’d all work together at the clinic, and in the evening we would spend hours by the dinner tables talking about our families, hobbies, and the post popular forms of dancing!

Homeless Children's Education Fund

Through this organization, I tutor, mentor, and play with children aged 6-14 years old at the local women’s shelter. While there have been several days that have been tiresome and difficult, these children have become the highlight of my week. This afterschool program aims to help students with their homework, spend additional time on building good math and reading skills, followed by educational games. Throughout this experience, I especially clicked with a 12 year old girl, who had serious anger management issues, but and was a very quick-thinker and had a great sense of humor. The two of us would work together and then have fun playing different games and chatting. I introduced her to one of my favorite word games Boggle, and since then, we’d play it every single time I came in, joking with each other throughout. I became the “Boggle girl.” The day of her and her siblings goodbye party was far harder for me than I’d expected. She kept hugging me and refused to let me go, making the goodbye all the more difficult.

These children have helped me just as much as I’ve helped them. I help with homework and encouraging self-confidence, while they’ve helped me to become more patient and creative in my methods of teaching.