We're here at the office for our last day as Sewa Houston Summer Interns and it's very bittersweet. We've learned a lot about the refugee community the past two months. From working with Alief ISD, the Los Arcos community, hosting immunization drives, and various other projects have kept us extremely busy.
The Public Relations team has been busy keeping the public relations/grant writing team completed a wide variety of tasks this summer. Our responsibilities included: keeping track of each team’s activities, maintaining the social media accounts, organizing the email list, updating our event pages, introducing new features to our website, and writing reports for various projects, as well as a few minor tasks like creating a radio ad for our annual fundraiser, painting boxes for the Alief school supplies drive, and editing donation letters for the Uttarakhand Flood Relief efforts that Sewa has been focusing on.
Public Health has had quite a bit of exposure this summer. Initially, they started the internship by surveying the Bhutanese immigrants at the Los Arcos complex to learn which health issues affect the community. From the collected surveys, applying for insurance was one of the most prominent public health problem faced by the immigrants. To address this issue, they took a field trip with 7 of the Bhutanese families to E.C.H.O.S., an organization that helps people apply or reapply for insurance. They also created an insurance handout that would be useful for all the residents of Harris county. The handout contains information about different insurances and a list of low cost/free clinics. Over the summer, they also organized two very successful immunization drives, one at Alief, and one at the Los Arcos apartment, During both the drives, they immunized 154 children in total. In addition, they also organized an "End of the internship" summer celebration for the Los Arcos residents, interns, volunteers and donors.
The Family Services/Community Empowerment team worked in two fields this summer. For Community Empowerment, they offered weekly sessions which are geared towards teaching Bhutanese refuge community technical skills and small-business skills. During the summer, we taught refugee families skills in T-shirt printing, needlework, and jewelry making, which could help them earn a higher income and gain self-sufficiency. At the end of the internship, the refugee adults have made great progress in these skills. They created very good-quality products. They helped them market their bracelets and T-shirts and the clients loved their products. For Family Services, they worked on several projects that helped promote our Family Services initiative: (1) The team completed a presentation on Five Wishes, and introduced what is Five Wishes, how to complete Five Wishes, and How Sewa Family Services can help people complete Five Wishes; (2) We updated Family Services’ various databases on an on-going base, including the volunteer one, the clients one, and the cooperation organizations; (3) They set up a calendar for Family Services’ workshop. The workshop will be held in every other month. The subjects of the workshop include Five Wishes, Volunteer Orientation, Yoga for Senior Citizens, Family Relationship, and Parenting.
The Children's Activities team has had a lot of hands-on experience with the kids in their program. Their biweekly visits to the los arcos apartments proved to require a lot of time and energy for the team, but they successfully pulled it off. Each time they were at the work site an activity was planned that turned out incredible in the end. The kids were entertained and quickly bonded with the team members. By the end of summer, everyone knew the kids that regularly attended programs and bonded with them. Most of all, the team helped the kids learn more about the classroom. The activities would always have a goal in mind that was educational.
This summer was extremely rewarding for all of us and we hope we've made an impact on Sewa and the Houston refugee community. We thank you all for reading our blogs and updates!
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