My school and I volunteered at Horace Mann Middle School with their refugee and immigrants program, Most of the students speak zero to vert little English. A lot of the students went through sever traumas in their home countries (Africa, Asia, and Latin America). Through this project I learned a lot about the struggles that minorities and people seeking asylum go through. This was one of the most impactful projects I've ever done. I had never hear someone's story of how they migrated to the U.S. besides my family's. Some students were almost poisoned on their journey to the U.S. whereas other had to flee their country because their families were being threatened. Thankfully, my partner Claudia's story wasn't too sad compared to some of my peers' buddies.
With a group of two other classmates, we worked along with three students from Horace Mann Middle School. We would occasionally do actives in a group but for the most part we each had a buddy. With our buddies we read picture books, to help them accomplish some of their challenges with the English language. And our buddies shared their journey and stories of how they migrated to the U.S.
Reflection
During this project I grew a lot as an artist. Typically, I always avoid drawing and prefer to use Adobe Illustrator. I'm more comfortable with my Illustrator skills than with my drawing skills. However, this semester due to my concussion, I had to avoid using computers as much as possible. I'm very proud of my drawings. Personally, I think they were pretty good and I worked really hard on them.
It surprised me how mean the teachers were. These kids were new to this country and I would have expected for their teachers to be more nice and welcoming.