Register for Project SHINE!

Registration for Project SHINE Spring Semester 2010 is now open. If you have not volunteered with SHINE before and would like to start volunteering in January, please click on the link below to register for the orientation session on January 20th from 6:00-7:30pm.

Click here to register for Project SHINE, Spring semester 2010

The link above is for NEW volunteers. If you have volunteered with SHINE before and would like to continue volunteering during spring semester 2010, please contact Lauren Henricksen at ltenhar@emory.edu for more information.

Welcome to Project SHINE! Looking forward to working with you this semester.

Questions or concerns? Email the Project SHINE Coordinator: Lauren Henricksen, ltenhar@emory.edu.

Site Profile: Global Village School

Project SHINE Atlanta’s newest community partner, the Global Village School, started to help teenage survivors of war and refugee camps acquire the education necessary to graduate from high school and attend college.

GVS is a school for refugee girls age 13-19, and SHINE volunteers assist the teachers at Global Village School and help to tutor the girls who attend school there.

Since the mid-1980s, survivors of war have been arriving in Atlanta from all over the world. Their countries of origin include Afghanistan, Iraq, Burma, Liberia, Sudan, Somalia, Vietnam, Bosnia, Burundi, and many more. These brave and weary travelers have survived years of horrific violence, family disintegration, and perilous living in refugee camps. They arrive in our community with many needs and endless potential to revitalize the American Dream. Education is the key to their success.
However, when refugee teenagers arrive in Atlanta, they are routinely placed in the seventh grade, regardless of their academic experience. Many of these teenagers are illiterate; almost all have dramatic gaps in their formal education. Faced with high school textbooks in a language they cannot read, their school life becomes a nightmare of academic failure and social humiliation. Anecdotal estimates (no one keeps official track) place their dropout rate at 80 percent

Profile of the Global Village School
• Students: 30 girls, ages 12 to 20, from 12 countries including Afghanistan, Iraq, Burundi, Burma, Bhutan, Somali, Sudan, Congo and others.
• Curriculum: As a Montessori-influenced school, we are creating an enhanced academic program including science, math, writing, humanities, the arts, and extensive English-language instruction. Students will learn from hands-on, real-life experience and acquire the social and cultural skills needed to survive in American society.
• Assessment: In partnership with Agnes Scott College, we have developed a comprehensive assessment method that combines self-evaluation, teacher evaluation, standardized tests, and portfolio assessment.
• Success: Academic success is a student achieving multiple years of progress in one academic year. Other success factors include confidence, public speaking, social and civic skills.
• Cost to Students: No tuition or fees are charged to students.
• Founding Faculty and Staff: GVS engages two full-time faculty and two part-time staff for business management and development. Volunteers provide the remaining support.
Our teachers include an award-winning, National Board Certified teacher with over 30 years experience teaching around the world and a 16-year veteran K-12 teacher with a specialty certification in English as a Second Language. Both teachers are veterans of the International Community and the Saturday School and have extensive experience teaching children and adolescents whose formal education has been interrupted by war.
• Location: Decatur Presbyterian Church. The church, which helped found Agnes Scott College, is providing GVS with free rent and utilities and has a long history of supporting education.
• Transportation: MARTA is opposite the church and will be our transportation system. Students will receive MARTA cards as part of their study package.
• Governance: The Global Village School is governed by a Board of Directors and supported by a Board of Advisors.

Check out the Global Village School online by clicking on the link to the right of the screen.

Want to volunteer at GVS? Email Lauren Henricksen at ltenhar@emory.edu. Accepting new volunteers in January 2010!

*Info for this post taken from GVS’ General Proposal: http://www.theglobalvillageschool.org/GenProposal.pdf*

CPACS 5th Annual TEA Walk!

Join CPACS in Our 5th Annual Together Empowering Asian Americans (TEA) Walk!

Top 5 Reasons to Join TEA Walk:

1) TEA Walk is the Only Empowerment Walk of its Kind

Each year more and more supporters join TEA Walk, having 200 participants in 2005 and expecting over 1,000 this year. The growth in supporters is in part because of the exponential growth of the Asian American communities in Georgia – Did you know that Georgia has the second fastest growing Asian American population in the United States? Let’s get together with everyone in the community and gain inspiration from each other!

2) Participate and Empower

* Volunteer: A great way to feel involved in TEA Walk is by volunteering. We need at least 100 volunteers to help the event run smoothly. Come serve along CPACS for this significant event. Please contact Andrew Ignacio at andrew.ignacio@cpacs.org if interested.

* Bang a Drum!: Music has the power to move, motivate and unite. This year, we’ve asked world renowned Atlanta Drum Café and The Cross Keys Marching Band to participate at TEA Walk. Bring a drum, and bang away during the speeches, walk and drum circle. Have your unique “beat” be heard and connected with others in our community.

* Bring organizational banners: Organizations are encouraged to bring their own banners for the walk, recognizing the positive impact Asian Americans are making in Georgia and local Atlanta communities.

3) FREE T-shirts, Food and More!

Participants will be given their very own TEA Walk t-shirt, as well as other free goodies from our participating community booths. We also have free and ample parking.

After the walk, participants will have a choice of lunch boxes from community booths including Korean/Chinese, Lao, and Vietnamese, as well as free yogurt from top yogurt company, Yogurberry!!

4) FREE Entertainment!

We also have an incredible line-up of stage entertainment post-walk including:

* Dance performances from the Laotian, Bhutanese, Vietnamese and Korean communities. Watch our Korean Senior line-dancers!

* Ethnic drum performances, including a steel drumer

* Martial Arts Exhibition from the Shaolin Institute

* RUBOX, winner of Atlanta’s 2009 Kollaboration Talent Show and beat-boxer extraordinaire!

5) FREE Family-Friendly Interactive Booths!

There will be a variety of community booths to entertain children, youths, adults and seniors. We will have a children’s activity tent, batik painting classes by the Malaysian Association of Georgia, free spine checks by Lee Chiropractic, Anime/Kung Fu characters from the Shaolin Institute, crafts for sale by the CPACS Senior Wellness group, voter registration, Census booth and more!

SAVE THE DATE: Saturday, October 10, 2009, and come enjoy the fun and festivities of TEA Walk.

Register for Project SHINE!

If you are interested in becoming a SHINE volunteer for Fall semester 2009, please click on the link below and register for one of our mandatory orientation sessions!

Project SHINE 2009 New Volunteer Registration Form

Questions? contact Lauren Henricksen at ltenhar@emory.edu for more info or attend one of the Project SHINE Information Sessions: Tuesday, September 1 from 12:00-1:00pm or Friday, September 4 from 4:00-5:00pm–both in DUC 355.

Highlights of Emory’s Engaged Scholarship and Service in 2008

• One third of all students across Emory’s nine schools took part in academic service learning, including law students who provided 26,076 hours of pro bono work for local clinics and agencies.
• More than 80 percent of Emory seniors reported serving as volunteers while in college.
• In metro-Atlanta and statewide, Emory programs, mentors and tutors enrich the learning of K-12 students in more than 120 public schools, with a particular emphasis on Emory’ science education.
• Emory’s outreach also includes hundreds of new immigrants now on the path to U.S. citizenship, thanks to students who devoted 2,500 hours coaching English language learners of all ages.
• 92 percent of Oxford College students engage in community service, contributing nearly 10,000 hours of service in just one year.
• Nearly all students in nursing and theology are required to complete community-based service work as part of their degree program.

CPACS in the news!

One of Project SHINE’s Community Partner organizations was featured in an Atlanta Journal Constitution article about barriers to healthcare–a significant issue many new Americans are facing.  Click here to read the article!

Volunteering 101

There are lots of great reasons to volunteer. SHINE volunteers routinely surprise me with the stories they share.  I hear about kids who successfully learned their multiplication tables, and the smiling faces that greet SHINE volunteers week after week. These are the reasons they keep coming back to SHINE week after week. “It feels good to help someone start a new life,” one volunteer said last Spring.

But despite the good vibes that result from getting off the couch to volunteer with SHINE, some volunteers have some  misconceptions about just what volunteering is all about.  Below are just a few of those misconceptions so that YOU don’t get blindsided by what volunteering with SHINE will be like.

• All you need to do is show up. The common conception that volunteering at a soup kitchen means, well, you just show up at the soup kitchen, isn’t quite accurate. A lot of organizations require a volunteer orientation– and often more than one session (SHINE included!). So do some research before contacting an organization. Make sure you know about the hours volunteers are needed, the kind of work that’s most useful, and what time commitment, if any, is required.  Uncommitted, untrained and undependable volunteers are neither desirable or helpful to non-profit organizations who often depend on volunteers to operate their programs effectively. Be prepared!

• When you show up, you’ll be expected. Organizations that use volunteers are, by definition, understaffed, and the friendly person you spoke with over the phone might not be the same person who’s at reception on your first day. Patience and a sense of humor are invaluable, both for staff and volunteers.

• Every situation will be covered in training. Mentoring a teenager was great. Listening to that teenager offhandedly talk about whether or not to try drugs wasn’t so great. Especially if you want to work with children, make sure there’s at least one staff person you can turn to with questions and concerns, and know the organization’s protocol for handling delicate situations, and be flexible when things don’t always go according to plan.

• You’ll be performing your dream task. My most memorable experience so far has been the afternoon in Boston I spent pounding at half-thawed chicken with a tenderizer, breaking rhythm only when the head chef scolded me for not flattening the meat enough. Did my hands smell like poultry the rest of the week? Of course. Did I feel a surge of pride when I left that evening and saw the chicken dinners ready to be delivered to people in the area living with HIV? Of course.  Be willing to perform the tasks that nobody else wants to–it’s often these tasks that are the most needed, and appreciated!

If you go in prepared and with realistic expectations, not only are you more useful to the organization, but you’re more likely to have a truly enjoyable and rewarding experience.

Adapted from: Sarah Erdreich,Volunteering 101, Foolanthropy, 2006. http://www.fool.com/foolanthropy/2006/foolanthropy06121403.htm