Teaching English

This September I was made aware of a non-profit organization seeking volunteers to teach English to refugees and asylum seekers.  The organization is called Northern Ireland Centre for Refugees & Asylum Seekers (NICRAS).  NICRAS is run on a shoe-string budget with the goal of helping refugees & asylum seekers transition into their new country.  It is housed in a converted terraced house which is a few years past its prime.  To say the building is old would be to say that the Vatican has been around for a few years.  The front door shuts most of the time, and only one of the three bathrooms works some of the time.  The teaching room is located on the fourth floor…four floors with very steep steps, (many of which I am certain are not up to code) made even steeper by the 33 week-old fetus growing inside my body.  For a few weeks now on Tuesdays and Thursdays, I have been able to volunteer my time and help teach English to this vulnerable group of people.  Most of these men and women come from war-torn countries such as Sudan and Somalia, and other countries with extreme poverty such as Ethiopia.   Many do not know where they will be headed to next until they board the plane departing their home country.  They often are able to bring the clothes on their backs and the stories of devastation and heartbreak of the atrocities they have witnessed in their home country.  Many of the asylum seekers are living in temporary youth hostel accommodations and must check in each Wednesday at North Irish government offices to maintain asylum status.  If they obtain refugee status (something which is not a guarantee), they then must find a way to acquire housing, transportation, and nourishment on their own in a land where they have trouble communicating and are learning as they go.  There is a wide range of English knowledge from the students who show up for tutoring.  Some have had university experience in their home country and a little exposure to English, while others have never set foot in a formal classroom and instead worked as a shepherd their entire lives in remote mountain regions.  The diverse knowledge backgrounds makes for an interesting mix to teach.  One group may be learning how to greet people in English and ask for directions while another group is learning the alphabet while yet another group is practicing reading English aloud from chapter books.  This is truly turning into one of those experiences where I am the one being transformed and touched by the very people who I am supposed to be helping.  Seeing the excitement in the eyes of the students when they understand something in English is a gift like I have never before felt.  Experiencing the gratitude for simply having a teacher sit with them for an hour and a half and work through this complicated language we call English makes me feel honored to be in that role.  After witnessing how grateful these students are to learn, I have found myself feeling frustration with those, myself included, who take their overall education for granted.  Each Tuesday and Thursday night I reflect on my day and I find myself feeling that much more thankful for all of the many blessings surrounding Dave and me.  The small gift of speaking the same language keeps me ahead of many people whose first language is not English and end up here either by choice or by luck of the draw.  For example, I am able to easily communicate with my doctors and midwives about questions, concerns, and comments about my pregnancy and understand their responses without needing the aid of a translator.  There are pregnant women who come to NICRAS and I have been able to teach them the words of vital pregnancy terms they need to know as well as what to expect when they are expecting in Belfast in regards to pregnancy health care.  My only regret about NICRAS is that I did not find out about it sooner.  Although I have only been volunteering at NICRAS for a few short weeks and only have a few months left, I can honestly say that it will be one of the things I will miss most about Belfast.  It is already spurring me to try and find a comparable organization in the U.S. to help people in similar situations and work to extend a hand of humanity  in an otherwise cold world.  In other words, take on the challenge laid out by a former Hope College dean of chapel in my undergrad years who said, “go out and be the Gospel”.