Living Editor Hope Riley reflects on her experience of working for Jacari, a student-based tutoring charity which supports children with English as as an additional language (EAL) and considers why volunteering in Bristol is a fun and rewarding use of your free time at University.
At school, the term ‘extra-curricular’ was a buzzword that triggered in me subliminal feelings of inadequacy. As I could not play an instrument and I was not on a sports team, there seemed to be no other option but to get on with my A-Levels and hope that my UCAS applications did not suffer as a result.
These opportunities are there to benefit the community as well as the individual
At university, however, ‘extra-curricular’ is a term that encompasses far more than music and sport. There is a plethora of different opportunities to get involved with. These opportunities are there to benefit the community as well as the individual, no matter your skill set.
In my second year of University, I started volunteering for Jacari, a small student-led charity that was originally founded at the University of Oxford in 1956 as a political activism group: the Joint Action Committee Against Racial Intolerance. Jacari, as oldest student charity in Oxford, has a historic legacy of helping children who speak English as an additional language (EAL) and are therefore at an extreme academic disadvantage to their peers. The charity holds the belief that English being a child’s second language should not restrict their right to an education.
Jacari ran as an independent charity in Oxford for over sixty years but it expanded to Bristol in 2015 to tackle the urgent need to solve educational inequalities and support EAL children in our expanding and diversifying city, many of whom were refugees. Although providing housing and education for refugee families is a crucial starting point, the reality is that their struggle does not end here.
2015 is likely to break records for forced displacement - our latest report: https://t.co/iIJVZ9nkHI pic.twitter.com/0GyBAZOnxq
— UN Refugee Agency (@Refugees) 18 December 2015
EAL children and young people from families that have migrated to the UK are often expected to sit exactly the same exams – for instance SATS/GCSEs - as native English speakers, sometimes within weeks or months of arriving. As a result, Jacari tutors focus on tackling this point of educational inequality by providing one-on-one English teaching sessions with pupils who are in need, to boost their confidence and unlock their full academic potential.
Students who sign up to tutor for Jacari fill in a form online, undergo a DBS check and go to a one-off 3-hour training session before being matched with a pupil. It is then up to the student to liaise with their pupil’s family to find a suitable weekly slot to have the lesson – usually this takes place in the pupil’s home, or it is possible to arrange the lesson in school.
Jacari differs from other teaching organisations in that volunteers commit to tutoring the same pupil for a minimum of 15 sessions (about a year), and as such develop a special bond with the pupil. It is immensely rewarding to watch your pupil grow in confidence in speaking English and the improvement in their schoolwork can be astronomical as a result.
If you wish to get involved with Jacari this academic year, then email: publicity.bristol@jacari.org. Applications are welcomed from students from all degree programmes at all levels.
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Featured Image: Epigram / Hope Riley
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