Get Involved!
You can make a big difference in the lives of immigrant youth, adults, and families in Somerville by contributing as a donor and/or volunteer:
Make Your Donation
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Your donations contribute directly to:
- Enabling immigrant adults to learn English and navigate a new culture. Between 150-200 adult students are enrolled in our English classes each semester. Each student is learning the language to navigate a new community and culture and to be able to contribute meaningfully to the life of the community.
- Cultivating leadership and language interpretation skills for a new generation of bilingual youth leaders. Each year, 12-18 bilingual high school students gain and demonstrate language interpretation and leadership skills through the Liaison Interpreters Program of Somerville (LIPS). They engage in professional training from certified language interpreters and practice their interpretation skills by helping Limited English Speakers at community meetings throughout the city.
- Organizing and supporting immigrant parents to be engaged in their children's education. Through our International Parents Group and an ESOL class called "English for Helping Your Children in School," immigrant parents learn the language for navigating US schools so that they can meet with their children's teacher, arrange for tutoring, help with homework, and participate in the PTA and school decision-making. Parent engagement has a very substantial impact on the academic success of young people.
The Welcome Project
530 Mystic Avenue
Somerville, MA 02145
Volunteer or Intern at The Welcome Project
The Welcome Project seeks volunteers and interns in a variety of areas to help advance our work. Potential roles include tutoring or mentoring a student, helping in our community garden, and assisting with communications and events.
- help teach English classes for more than 200 Somerville residents working hard to learn a new language
- provide training for 15 bilingual high school youth in language interpretation, and then use those skills to help others at community meetings throughout the city.
- provide support to youth from immigrant families who would be the first in their families to attend a US college.
- facilitate an international parents group to enable immigrant parents to be better able to navigate the school system so that they can support their children's education.
Curent volunteer openings:
Please mail cover letters and resumes for these volunteer positions to Lisa Gimbel at esol.somerville@gmail.com, or call 617.500.7436.
- Volunteer ESOL Teacher. The Welcome Project seeks an experienced volunteer teacher to assist and teach an ESOL class 4 hours a week during 2012-13. Our students are mostly from Central America, Haiti, and Brazil, as well as other countries, and range in age as well as education level. We currently have openings for volunteers during morning and evening classes. For a full description of this volunteer position, click here.
- Volunteer English Program Assistant. The program assistant position is 5 – 10 hours per week. The assistant has the opportunity to observe classes if desired, and gets to be part of a dynamic organization working towards multilingual justice.Responsibilities include calling students from all TWP classes who have missed two classes in a row, entering data and payment info, maintaining student files on paper, placement intake, and assessment informaiton, issuing invoices for paying substitutes, and meeting regularly with program staff. For a full description of this volunteer position, click here.
- VolunteerBoard Member. The Welcome Project is currently seeking candidates who are interested in joining our board and sharing their experiences and networks in order to advance the organization's vision, mission and programs. Ideal candidates will be passionate and knowledgeable about immigrant communities, social justice, community empowerment and/or grassroots activism. Additionally, we are particularly interested in applicants with financial and/or fundraising skills. For a full description of this position, click here.
