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With funding from the Technology Matching Fund, Literacy Source seeks to provide computer literacy instruction in Job Readiness, Community Access, and Basic Computer skills to 34 low income adult learners. Literacy Source will also develop partnerships and provide computer skills instruction to three community organizations and train 16 volunteer computer tutors.
The students are house painters and housewives, restaurant owners and senior citizens — all legal permanent residents seeking a singular goal: U.S. citizenship.
They're enrolled in Academia América, a nonprofit educational service organization that offers free classes. Incorporated in March 2008, it's only in its fourth semester but already has had to turn students away. While it prepares lawful permanent residents to take citizenship tests, it also has an agenda.
“We just don't want them to become citizens,” one instructor said, “but active members of the community.”
Once in a while I run across something that makes me profoundly grateful to be a native speaker of English. It happened again the other day when I caught up with a report in The Economist about how the Philippines is losing its edge in English. The proportion of Filipinos who speak English, as well as their proficiency, has been on the decline for three decades, the magazine reports. (Read entire article here)
Literacy Source has been selected for the 2009 Seattle Award in the Reading & Speaking Schools category by the U.S. Commerce Association (USCA).
We celebrate this effort to increase AmeriCorps service opportunities, and thank our Literacy*AmeriCorps members for all that they contribute to our community. Over the past several years, AmeriCorps members have supported volunteers, taught , welcomed new students to the center, and promoted student and volunteer engagement in the broader community. They ensure that students and volunteers are well-supported with resources, encouragement, and guidance. AmeriCorps service increases the number of students we reach and the quality of support we offer our students, volunteers, and partner organizations.
California, New York and Florida have all shown dramatic increases in illiteracy rates. The figures have improved in a few states, like Mississippi, Rhode Island and Kentucky. But worldwide, the United States doesn't stack up too well in general. Fourteen countries rank higher in reading ability than the United States, including Finland, Canada, New Zealand, Australia, Ireland, South Korea, UK, Japan, Sweden, Iceland, Belgium, Austria, France and Norway...
The theory is: you're never too young or too old to learn. Working with Buffalo's literacy volunteers has given Jones a fresh start. "They gave me a chance to open a door that I could never open before," he said. "Hallelujah - I could never open it before, because I couldn't read."
Refugees and other humanitarian immigrants whose Supplemental Security Income (SSI) benefits were available only during a seven-year time period, may receive SSI for at least two additional years. Under a new law effective today, October 1, 2008, humanitarian immigrants whose SSI was cut off or who were denied SSI due to the expiration of this time period should contact the Social Security Administration (SSA) immediately to apply for the extension. The new law provides a third year of benefits for humanitarian immigrants who have a naturalization application pending at the end of the two-year extension. The extensions of SSI eligibility expire in the year 2011 under a sunset provision in H.R. 2608, "The SSI Extension for Elderly and Disabled Refugees Act." Advocates have developed a fact sheet about the new law, available [here].
Adam Fink’s Ten Commandments for Volunteers
- Be purposeful. Know what skills you have to contribute before you arrive on the scene.
- Be flexible. This includes being prepared to do administrative grunt work. (Sorry, not all aid work involves washing babies and hugging orphaned children.)
- Be reflective. Constantly question your motives. Ask yourself why you are helping, think of your motivation, and keep that at the forefront of your mind.
- Be receptive. Learn as much as you can. That said, be wary of engaging for too long with NGO veterans who have become hardened and cynical from their work. Instead, find long-termers with hope still gleaming in their eyes. Then, latch on with open ears.
- Be positive. Take pride in your idealism—it’s the only thing that can ward off the inevitability of cynicism’s approach in your difficult environment.
- Be realistic. Your idealism can be balanced only by the knowledge that you are not here to save the world, but to play one specific role and that you may never witness the effects of your efforts.
- Be independent. Much of your work will depend on your personal initiative. Be a team player, but do not rely on others to guide you every step of the way.
- Be empathetic. Your ability to succeed will depend entirely on your connection to and understanding of the people you work with.
- Be humble. Don’t speak much. Listen. Avoid grandiose conclusions about a problem, community, or philosophy that you were recently introduced to. Act. Think. Feel. But don’t come to too many conclusions—they will only halt your experiential learning process.
The New York Times Opinion page and United States Citizenship and Immigration Services recently shared their perspectives on the naturalization process. The articles specifically address the processing of naturalization applications and the question of whether applicants are waiting longer, or too long, for their applications to be processed in order to naturalize. Literacy Source citizenship students recently wrote a letter to President Bush addressing the same issues. In the letter, dated December 12, 2007, the students wrote: "We would like you to know that we are all studying hard so that we can pass our citizenship test. We would like to know why it takes so long for us to be notified about our interview. Two students completed their fingerprints and citizenship application in the summer and they have been waiting several months to find out when their interview will be scheduled."
Read the NY Times editorial here.
Read response from USCIS director Emilio Gonzalez here.
From Salon.com: The Bible counsels misers that it's better to give than to receive. Science agrees. People who made gifts to others or to charities reported they were happier than folks who didn't share, according to a report in Friday's issue of the journal Science.
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) today announced the 100 questions and answers that comprise the civics component of the new naturalization test. USCIS will administer this new test to citizenship applicants beginning in October 2008.
Vincent's story begins in Niagara Falls, N.Y., where people knew him as a roughneck, a troublemaker. He was a rap singer with muscles and tattoos and a scar from a barroom brawl.
But one day, Vincent says, someone convinced him to read a book about facing fear. It was the first book he ever read from front to back -- and it awakened a hunger in him.
"I was a kid from the 'hood, and all of the sudden," he says, "I realized I didn't know anything."
He stopped fighting. He left New York. He moved to Charlotte.
And he opened a bookstore to open other people's eyes
Queens Community House in Jackson Heights, N.Y., doesn't advertise its free English courses, but for many years its lotteries for places in the class drew hordes that required police presence. A new system has eliminated the crowds -- and the need for cops -- but competition for spaces remains fierce: Three out of four interested applicants are turned away.
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