A Refugee’s Future is Bright with the Help of the Youth of Today

written by Lubna Zeidan, iACT for Refugees Program Coordinator

iACT for Refugees teaches English to newly arrived refugees from all over the world. Refugees are legally resettled in the United States after it is determines that going back to their home countries could be a death sentence for them. The program was started in 2002 and has grown with the increasing numbers of refugees coming to Texas.

We teach over 500 adult clients a year and see an additional 150 kids in our childcare and summer program. In the summer we teach 50 school aged refugee children and follow up on their work during the next school year to offer them help and academic support. We do this in collaboration with Austin Independent School District and the numerous after school programs already established.

During the summer program we recruit a large number of volunteers led by two professional teachers from the AISD who help teach the children. In recent years we are seeing a larger number of younger volunteers who either volunteer with their parents or on their own if they are 16 or older.

The trend of having youth volunteers is actually what started our summer program. Back in 2007, our then long- time volunteer Cindy Zieve helped us kick off a program that had no funding by organizing groups of youths working on their Mitzvah projects at her synagogue Congregation Agudas Achim. The young volunteers and their parents worked with lesson plans Cindy created with materials also donated by members of the congregation.

The success of that year, gave us the incentive to work at getting funding for a new summer program that we were able to continue in later years. This allowed us to pay professional teachers to plan, lead and implement the summer program and for one teacher to follow up with the kids during the next school year. We use a number of volunteers for the 7 week program to lead learning centers.

What has happened in the last two years has brought us full circle. A new group of young people are showing interest in volunteering in the program and have carried their generosity even further. Last year, Hannah Whellan who volunteered with us in summer, asked the guests at her Bat Mitzvah to bring household items for refugee families instead of gifts for her. When we put out the bounty for our clients to pick from, the excitement was palpable when they realized that the donations were brand new.

This summer Arthur Holtzman did the same. He and his mom, Grace, volunteered for multiple weeks during the iLearn program. Then at his Bar Mitzvah last month, guests were asked to bring household items for the refugees as gifts for Arthur. We gave out the bounty last week and our clients were extremely happy. They were also incredulous that a young boy would be so generous.

When I meet young people who are touched by a cause, I am humbled – especially when I was well into my adulthood when I figured out the cause I was passionate about. I am passionate about refugees, their great strength and resilience, their ability to keep going after traumatic and earth shattering experiences and their courage in forsaking everything they knew to embrace the hope of a better life in a new and foreign land. I am reassured when this land includes generous and thoughtful young people like Arthur and Hannah and others I have met each summer, because it means that the future for strangers in this strange land could be bright.