Children are a Bundle of Joy

By: Chinelo Edochi

The last day tutoring at SLI was the best day for me. I went to two different classes I hadn’t been to since the program started. I hadn’t been in the class for more than five minutes and the children had already opened up to me. They were receptive towards my assistance. They were so outspoken and were very interested in knowing things about me as I was them. SLI ended on Thursday and I was there for their multicultural day event which I was highly anticipating would go smoothly. I looked forward to learning more values and cultural beliefs.

Today was the last day at SLI. There was a multicultural event at the school today. The children had put up different information about their countries and various cultural backgrounds on the diversity wall. They all wore a white shirt which had Summer Language Institute written on it. Two of the high school kids approached me and asked me to sign on their shirts. I really felt accepted by them because of this act. The high school choir students performed and sang beautifully. Some of the high school students were also awarded certificates for their hard work and dedication in school. The teachers and students also entertained the crowd by dancing together to different nations music, there was salsa, azonto and a few others. Lastly, I and two other interns joined in the fun by dancing salsa we entertained the students and teachers with this little presentation as they videoed us.

SLI really taught me a lot. Being of assistance to people especially children has been a wonderful experience. You never know how far a little help or push towards their dreams in life may go. The multicultural day gave me a filling of joy, happiness and tears because it would be the last time I would be seeing the children.

The End of SLI

By: Sathvika Ramachandran

On the last day of SLI, the school held a multi cultural program where the kids showcased their posters for different countries around the world. Being able to see the progress of these students throughout the past month was incredible, and saying goodbye to them today was bittersweet. When the choir sang patriotic, American songs in front of their peers, the fellow interns and I began choking up. The new immigrant children are all so diverse, and yet they still are all united by their desire to learn and make the best of their lives. SLI was a wonderful program, and I learned so much about the new immigrant population.

A Wave and A Smile

She spots me from across the hallway. Meeting my eye, her face spreads into a grin as she waves hello to me. I eagerly do the same and walk over to her. Although she speaks very little English, we are able to hold a basic conversation, full of smiles that convey our excitement to see each other again.

For the first half of the internship, we have been tutoring students in Alief ISD as part of the Summer Language Institute. In spite of being incredibly smart, their limited understanding of the English language results in poor grades and the need for summer school classes. The girl that has just waved to me was in one of the classes I helped tutor.

On the first day I entered her classroom, her teacher pointed her out to me because she needed a lot of help understanding the material. She was sitting in a group with three other girls, and I asked if I could sit with them. They were doing an assignment for their science class. Within minutes of sitting down with the group of girls, I realized that the understood the material perfectly fine. However, due to the additional challenge of knowing particular English words, they were quickly discouraged.

I confess that other than my knowledge of the the basic “Hello, my name is…,” I do not speak Spanish. I helped the girls when they asked me what things meant and tried to ask them questions about themselves. Even though a lot was lost in translation, or the lack thereof, we were able to get to know one another.

The next time I visited their classroom, and each time after that, I was ushered into the room by these young girls. Their excitement to see me was both flattering and surprising because I did not think I was doing much to help them understand. However, by spending as little as an hour with them each time I came to their classroom, I was able to leave an impression on these incredibly bright young girls.

Now that the program has ended, I am saddened that I won’t be greeted by a giant wave across a crowded hallway anymore. Yet even as I write this blog entry, I am smiling because I am so grateful for the opportunity I was given to get to know these students. You never know how you can make a difference in someone’s life. Although I was there to help them learn English, they ended up teaching me (the clichéd but true reality) that we are all capable of helping others be happier, more confident versions of themselves.

July 3, 2014

By: Maria Mercado

Today was a day of mixed sentiments. The students of the Summer Language Institute were celebrating their last day of school with their Cultural Day. I walked into the cafeteria as some of the high school students prepared to perform in front of all the students. My heart melted as I heard their beautiful voices sing patriotic songs such as: “My County, ‘Tis of Thee”, “My Land is Your Land”, and “Deep in the Heart of Texas”. Immigration has laid the foundation of American values and principles, and today I witnessed the culmination of America’s diversity of singing in unison.

To further kindle the fire of emotions, the children of the Dual Language Program performed a song in Spanish about equality. At that moment I could not be prouder to be an American. Eventually I prepared myself to say good-bye to the wonderful students that had opened their heart to me. As I approach the students of the Dual Language program, the children surround me and give a group hug. My heart swelled with happiness knowing that these children could see me has a friend willing to help them in their strive for a brighter future. It’s so true when others tell you that without noticing, we learn so much from those we serve.

I want to personally thank the faculty of Alief’s Summer Institute for welcoming us into their classroom. We at Sewa will truly miss all of you!

Taking a Step Back

Reflecting back on my last internship, it almost took me an entire year to digest and begin to understand and articulate the precious moments that built my experience. These caricatures of time, I’m beginning to realize, are so sociologically rich and serve as evidence of the reason I was initially drawn to the sector of public health. As I write this at the office, headphones disconnecting me from the world around me, it’s easy to forget about the disparity between theory and practice that we experience on the field. For instance, just yesterday during Children’s Activities at Los Arcos we had pleasure of being joined by one of the neighborhood girls, a recent immigrant from Kenya. Now, what theory and speculation suggest is the possibility of disjuncture between the room full of Bhutanese refugee children and the girl from Kenya. In practice? It’s absolutely unfounded. Not merely a single child noticed what would so commonly be dubbed by textbooks as “diversity”. In all honestly, neither did I. In fact, I recall handing her a consent waiver on her way out of the Sewa community center. What an excellent time indeed to be reminded that the work we do, though directly serving the Bhutanese community of a single apartment complex in a large metropolitan area, has immense ripple effects on the community at large.

Stepping Out of Sewa

Three weeks at Sewa has taught me so much about the Bhutanese refugee community. We’ve been able to loosely assess the health needs of those living at Los Arcos, develop programming for health camps, and held the first immunization drive of the summer. But as much as we’ve done in these few weeks, there was a lot that we needed help with.

Our first call was to Epiphany Community Health Outreach Services (E.C.H.O.S.). They worked with last year’s Sewa summer interns, and so we felt that they could be a great resource to us. When we walked into the office, we were greeted by the executive director and given a tour of their facilities. To say that what E.C.H.O.S. does is amazing would be an understatement. They provide so many underserved people with access to health care, health screenings, checkups, and more. In addition, the executive director knows everyone who could be of use to us as public health interns.  We were given names of so many organizations within Houston who provide health services for free or low-cost to underserved communities like those at Los Arcos.

Although the meeting lasted for a little more than an hour, we left armed with so many resources that we could not possibly use them all in our remaining time here. Hopefully when we leave, we will be able to pass on our knowledge to the next group of interns to pick up where we left off. My experience at E.C.H.O.S. demonstrated the power of acknowledging your own weaknesses and gaps in knowledge.

By recognizing what I do not know, I can help find people with the appropriate skills and knowledge to help me learn how to best help the community. Realistically, one person and one organization cannot possibly do everything. By pooling our collective resources, however, we can make a greater impact on the people we do our best to help.

"The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others."

By: Sathvika Ramachandran
Yesterday, in the car ride home from the immunization drive, I was hit with this sort of uncomfortable awareness that in the past few weeks of interning, I haven’t yet had the quintessential, social justice-y college student’s realization of “wow, I’m so privileged compared to the people that I serve.” I couldn’t quite figure out how I’ve become so unphased by the refugees, SLI students and the massive disparity between both our circumstances. Instances then started popping up in my head of my inherent impassiveness. In my time at Los Arcos, I spend way more time making the little kids to pick up after their own selves rather than wasting even a second cleaning up after them.

This past Tuesday, one of my SLI students, Jose, couldn’t spit even a simple sentence of English out. I refused to talk to him in Spanish. Instead, I made him go through a laborious process-- I made him do the whole assignment with me in English, then I made him translate the English sentences he created to Spanish, and then I made him read the Spanish sentences out loud in English.

On career day, a little girl from Nigeria acted as our guide and led Alexis and me to different classrooms so we could speak to students about planning for the future. Before we entered one classroom, the girl excitedly pointed at the door and said that this was her class. I asked her if she liked the class, the subject, and the teacher, and she nodded her head to everything. She then told me, “I get made fun of though…”

I asked her, “Why?”

She said, “They make fun of me whenever I answer questions. They make fun of me because I’m black. They don’t like it when I answer questions.”

I told her bluntly, “Haha, that’s stupid. Just answer the questions anyway.” And then I walked into the class to speak.

Only now as I type this, I realize that this was my first encounter with a black child battling racism.

I’m not impassive.

The kids at Los Arcos keep banging on the door and beg us to play, even after we have to physically pick them up and put them outside so they can go home. They all tug at my shirt and pull on my hair, asking me to teach them new clapping games and to listen to their silly stories, worries, and dreams.

When we finished the assignment, Jose grinned and fist bumped into the air. Thirty minutes later, I was walking through the cafeteria to get to the main office, and I saw him in the lunch line. He stopped joking with his clique, stepped out of the line, and came over to hug me.

The little girl from Nigeria told me, “Yes I know. I always work hard.” She smiled, and then proudly opened the door to her classroom for Alexis and me.

I haven’t forgotten the big picture, but I’ve become lost in the details. Instead of being occupied with numbers, statistics, and circumstances, right now, I am fixated on their humanness. And this is why the vast, obvious differences between them and myself has become negligible. I’ve drowned over and over in my own immense love for them, and as a result, I’ve found such peace and happiness. I’m losing myself in helping them, but I’m finding everything that reminds me what it means to be human.

Slowly but surely there will be progress

By: Chinelo Edochi

E.C.H.O.S!!!!!!! Finding about this organization is something I really appreciate and can be highly beneficial to SEWA. E.C.H.O.S (Epiphany Community Health Outreach Services) is a non-profit organization that provides access to health care, education, job training and empowerment to immigrants, refugees or people at risk. They provide these services to people regardless of their culture, race or ethnicity. Yesterday,the other public health interns and myself went to E.C.H.O.S to get more information about their organization. We spoke to Jean Kegler, the executive director, who gave us a run-down of what they do and we also told her what SEWA does. We told her the project we were working on, which consists of three different health camps including nutrition and hygiene, women’s health and tobacco smoking, planned for the refugees at Los Arcos. She gave us great resources such as Juno research, Texas Smiles Dental, Bethel Heavenly Clinic and other resources and organizations we could reach out to. She also offered to help reach out to these organizations to see if we could get them to speak on the various health camps. Something else that got me excited was seeing a friend who worked at E.C.H.O.S that I never thought I would.

The children’s activities at Los Arcos was a huge success as well. It was well structured and very organized. The children were all very creative with the wooden puppets and wooden planes they made. They also paid close attention to rules and regulations that were laid down for them.