Upcoming Events San Francisco Happy Hour
Friday, September 24th 5 pm at Thirsty Bear 661 Howard Street San Francisco, CA 94105 Philanthro Productions, a non-profit event production company, will be holding a happy hour event specifically for Refugee Transitions! All proceeds from the event will go towards funding RT's programs. All our welcome, and we hope to see you there. More details to come. Please email Sandy, sandy@reftrans.org, with questions. |
Tutors needed for our after-school programs!
As the 2010-2011 school year approaches, we are still seeking volunteers (especially bi-lingual volunteers or volunteers who can help youth with math or science homework) for our after-school programs with San Francisco International High School (SFIHS) and Oakland International High School (OIHS). Please contact Lauren at lauren@reftrans.org for more information about how to volunteer! |
Send us pictures of you and your student!
The RT staff is currently creating a NEW documentary and brochure about our organization, and will be featuring footage and pictures from our various programs. We mainly need pictures of volunteers tutoring their students and would LOVE any contributions to this project.
Please email Sandy at sandy@reftrans.org with your pictures!
*Note: For all pictures, please make sure to receive student and/or parent permission.
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Volunteer
Resources
San Francisco
Golden Gate National ParksCheck out the Golden Gate National Parks Calendar for upcoming events to attend with your student! OaklandAs the school year begins, Oakland Unified School District's Refugee and Asylee Student Specialist, Langan Courtney (also an RT tutor), is a great resource for student and parent support. Contact Langan through email by clicking here. South BayCalWinNew in the South Bay, this website provides Food Stamp and Medical applications online. |
RT's NEW Facebook Page Please connect with us through our new Facebook Page! Just click here and then click on "Like" at the top of the page to keep updated with recent RT news, events, and media.
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Reminder:
Volunteer Logs
Friendly reminder to all home-based volunteers to send in their monthly volunteer logs! These logs are an incredibly important part of the tutoring process, as RT staff uses the logs to gauge student improvement, and this helps us to know when to test our students. For more information on how to complete a log go to: http://www.reftrans.org/volunteer-log/. If you have any questions, contact Sandy, sandy@reftrans.org.
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 RT Overnight Summer Camps - A Success!
Our annual boy's camp took place from July 30 - August 1, and the
annual girl's camp from August 12 - 14. Both were in the beautiful
Presidio of San Francisco. We set up and slept in tents for two nights,
played soccer at Crissy Field, visited the Farallones Marine Center,
sang and told stories by the campfire with Presidio park rangers,
created a diversity mural, wrote poetry, learned a dance routine, went on a nature hike, and
much, much more! See this month's Student Story to read a poem written by Praseela at the girl's camp.
 A special thank you to the amazing volunteers that helped out at the camps this year!
Girl's Camp Volunteers: Marissa Escalante, Hope Richardson, Nakachi Clark, and Rasika Apte
Boy's Camp Volunteers: Hla Htay, Dom Walterspiel, Jeremy Van Fleet, Zack Reidman, Issac Teckie, Alisa Loveman
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RT Welcomes Elizabeth Dellaha
ESL Program Coordinator
 Elizabeth
joins RT in the new role of ESL Program Coordinator.
She is a native of San Francisco and attended San Francisco State
University,
receiving her B.A. and M.A. in English with a concentration in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL).
She brings
her extensive experience as an ESL teacher, tutor, and coach to RT and
will be
working with our on-site program through Good Samaritan Family Resource Center and coordinating
our after-school tutoring program at San Francisco International High
School. In addition, she will be assisting with
volunteer and student matches in San Francisco. Elizabeth speaks fluent
Spanish as well as conversational
French. The daughter of immigrant parents, she is excited to be a part
of the RT staff and looks forward to working within the refugee and
immigrant communities in San Francisco!
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| Volunteer Log Milestones
Each month, we will be congratulating the RT volunteers who have submitted their logs and exceeded 50, 100, 200, and over 500 volunteer hours!
50+ hours: Jean Oakley, Nasser Khan, Marissa Lackey, Hayley Rucker, Anna McCanse, Karen Taylor, Julie McAfee, Laura Thompson, Betty Sauer, Roshni Patel, Jean Ranck, Mari Loria, Benjamin Delk, Matthew Grothman, Alana Aquilino, Annie Perng, Brian Muldoon, Emerita Postlewait, John Voelker, Josiah Bragdon, Noreen Zobel, Tami Weiss
100+ hours: David Chang, Janet Burdick, Lisa Weyland, Renee Enteen, Laura Roundy, Linda Foust, Julia Otis, Zack Reidman, Jamie Garsha, Ursula Shekufendeh, Anca Giurgiulescu, Murray Barrett, Carl Langfeldt, Barbara Malina, Jayma Brown, Brett Rankin
200+ hours: Angeline Yang, Debbie Brown, Mike Devito, Gerard Regan, Danielle Forestier, Sirianand Jacobs
500+ hours: Richard Marliave
Thank you volunteers for your impressive and valuable time and commitment to your students!
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Volunteer Spotlight
Lisa Weyland - South Bay
 Yasodha is a Bhutanese
refugee who just finished 8th grade. The biggest challenge of the
year for Yasodha was the science project requirement.
Yasodha's science project
required that she invent something. She was supposed to create something to
solve a problem. In talking over
possibilities, I asked her what would have helped her and her family as they
left Nepal and came to the United States.
She indicated that they had no luggage for their belongings. We brainstormed what could have been useful and
she decided to create a simple drawstring bag that could be used to hold
clothes. She then made several trips to
the library with me to do her research and type her information.
I had 3 or 4 types of cloth
that I brought for her to choose from and she got to work. She made a pattern out of paper, cut out the
pieces and had a quick sewing lesson on my 1950's Singer sewing machine. Coordinating the foot pedal with feeding the
material was hard. Her aunt helped her
with threading in the drawstring. Getting her project displayed on a trifold board was a group
effort.
Email
communication with the girls' ELL teacher and their science teachers was needed
to complete these projects. The general
education teachers are not aware how challenging these projects are for
students who do not have parents who are able to help and who have limited
resources. All the teachers were very
helpful and offered extra help at lunch or after school. Yasodha worked hard preparing
her project. |
Student Story
Praseela
 My name is Praseela. I come from Nepal. Where I come from, people like
loud noise and scream a lot. If you visited my country, you would see
flowers and you would smell the flowers and you would taste momos. I
like my country because it makes me feel home. It makes me feel that I
don't have to worry about anything. I get excited when I see my best
friend. When I am alone it scares me.
People think I am a
Cambodian but really I am Nepali. I am good at math, and I am good at
making friends. I miss my country but I love my mom. When I get older I
want to be a doctor. Now, I am trying to be a doctor. If I were an
animal I would be a unicorn because unicorns are so cute. If I were a
tree I would be an oak tree. If I were a color, I would be yellow
because yellow is my favorite color and my favorite fruit's color.
The
most important thing to me is my mom. I feel most at home when I am
smiling around my mom's cooking. I loved my home country because I was
born there. The things I miss are my friends and my country and my
school teachers. In my new home, I feel comfortable.
My dream in
California is to make my mom proud. I am proud of myself because I have
a dream. I will reach my dream if I learn science. My old tutor was
really nice. That's why I want to thank Refugee Transitions for giving
me the nicest tutor ever. |
Activity of the Month
CASAS Exam Preparation
The CASAS exam is a life and work related reading test that we administer to our adults students when they begin our program and then after 40 hours of instruction. For volunteers working with adults, we recommend covering the following basic subjects in order to help students prepare for the exam and gain useful real-life skills.
Important areas for competency:
1) Address: Help student learn to address letters and envelopes, memorize their home address and format
2) Money: Cover how to count, convert, and use coins and cash; recognize monetary symbols
3) Illness: Go over descriptions of symptoms of illness; identify main body parts; interpret doctor directions
4) Job Search: Identify useful sources of information for job opportunities (newspaper, job boards, etc); go over job descriptions and qualifications
5) Community: Cover important public signs, buildings and facilities
6) Wages: Interpret pay stubs (wages, wage deductions, benefits, etc)
7) Alphabet: Discriminate between upper-case and lower-case letters
8) Calendar: Know the months of the year and days of the week
9) Time: Be able to read the time on a clock
10) Transportation Signs: Recognize and use signs related to transportation
There are many more areas of competency tested on the CASAS exam. Please contact sandy@reftrans.org for a complete list!
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