Sewa ASPIRE Tutorials

Intensive Facebook Campaign helps SEWA International’s ASPIRE Tutorials win a grant of $25,000

Being a refugee is no easy task – having to adjust to a completely new environment, learn another language, earn a living from scratch, and provide for family members is just a glimpse of the challenges that refugees constantly face. This is especially true for Houston’s growing and diverse refugee population. It is for this reason that the city’s chapter of Sewa USA has wholeheartedly taken on the challenge of alleviating the burdens of refugee life through a variety of projects and programs. From its origins in 2003, the Hindu-based non-profit organization now has an extensive support network with the city’s refugee population as it strives to empower them to attain a better quality of life. In particular, the organization has excelled in promoting education within the youth, specifically through its ASPIRE Tutorial Program.

ASPIRE (Assuring Student Performance In Refugee Education) is the current system of tutorials provided by Sewa with the purpose of helping refugee and underprivileged children to catch up with their classmates and grade expectations. With its beginnings in 2008, the tutorial program has slowly grown and is now a year-round aspect of Sewa’s mission statement that provides students with invaluable one-on-one tutoring in essential elementary proficiencies.

Additionally, it has a formal structure that is conducive to learning and supplements school education with innovative and evolving teaching styles and activities. This aspect of the program is crucial because refugee children usually lack such structure in refugee camps. With a focus on the concepts rather than the need to complete school assignments, ASPIRE gives students the necessary tools to give them control of their education.

But the program itself serves a deeper purpose – to free children from the vicious cycle of poverty; to make children self-sufficient early on in their lives. In other words, it intends to tackle the root of poverty, which is a lack of education. A common issue faced by students is that due to their economic conditions, parents tend to place more attention on employment than on parental time. Consequently, Sewa serves as the transitory liaison and mentor. The organization recognizes that there is a direct correlation between education and quality of life; thus, to increase the latter, basic educational foundations (i.e. reading, speaking, and mathematics) must be bolstered. The benefit of such an approach is that it greatly increases the chances that each child has the opportunity to continue his or her educational endeavors. For this reason, Sewa wishes to continue the beneficial program into the future.

State Farm’s recent competition known as Neighborhood Assist provided a significant opportunity for Sewa as it challenged community members to vouch for a cause and earn $25,000 that can be used to promote it. The general procedure involved selecting an area to support and providing a grant statement that explained the organization’s purpose for applying. Determined with its ongoing ASPIRE program, Sewa’s position advocated for education. After submitting the application, Sewa was placed in the top 400 of the approximately 4000 that had applied across the different categories. At that point, an exclusive Facebook voting system was instilled in the sense that the number of “likes” on an organization’s page would determine their chances of winning – which means being in the top 40 in the leaderboard during the end of the voting period.

After Sewa was selected in the first phase, the Facebook voting process set off as organizations members spread the information of their cause to the greater community. And with the immense support of friends and family from the USA, Canada, UK, Australia, Japan, and India, Sewa secured a healthy rank of 19 when the polls closed. It was also the only charity from Texas to have made it to the top 40.

The additional money gained from this grant is extremely important as it will allow Sewa to buttress the infrastructure of the tutoring program as a whole as well as to have a continuous volunteering pool throughout the year. In other words, the money will ensure a smooth and productive continuation of the ASPIRE program and hence the betterment of the lives of refugee children in the years ahead.

Testimonials reflect that the refugee community is very thankful for the efforts of Sewa volunteers and that results are definitely visible as students that were once struggling are now on par with or have surpassed their classmates in school. What is more significant is that educating a single generation can greatly increase the chances that future generations will also be educated, thereby weakening the chains of poverty. Such outcomes are most desirable and therefore motivate the organization to continue its educational commitment.

Sewa also connects with refugee families on a personal level to form a very strong familial bond that makes it unique in its purpose and practice. The goal isn’t to simply help refugees, but to get to know them for who they are. Consequently, combining family bonds and the drive for educational advancement yields a very unique mission.

The future of Sewa is very promising as it already has established centers all around the world and is growing significantly as new challenges to humanity arise. Although societal idealism cannot be practically realized, Sewa’s efforts are definitely approaching the end goal of a happy world, one step at a time.

Contributed by Umang Thanki