Refugee Kids Field Trip

This past week I volunteered with AAIM at their annual Refugee Youth Day-Camp. This program is designed to help refugee kids, aged 5-17, prepare for school. Many of the kids land in Austin for the first time over the summer and so we wanna give them a little advanced preview of what school (and learning in English is like).

This week, I got to meet children from Yemen, Somalia, Afghanistan, Burma, Nepal, Iraq and Guatemala. Each child had his own special culture that they were so proud of, and yet they all had an eager curiosity to learn about their new home, Austin, Texas. Many of these kids have experienced some pretty rough things in their young lives, but they are slowly healing and starting over. Many don't know English, many are new school.

These kids will have to work hard to adjust. And learning will be exhausting for them ("My brain is soooo tired" and "My brain is spinning with words" were two comments I heard this week). But I hope they succeed. I hope this Day-Camp was encouraging for them... making them feel like they CAN learn, they WILL learn.

During the Day-Camp, we simulated school learning centers for 3 days, and then we celebrate at the end of the week by taking a field trip together. This week we walked to the Bob Bullock Texas State History Museum. The kids learned fun facts about their new home state... and we watched a 15 minute documentary at the Texas Spirit Theater. I think the kids were definitely overwhelmed, but loved learning about Texas at the same time!

A boy from Afghanistan sat next to me at the movie and whispered, "I've never seen a movie in the theater before... they didn't have theaters where I am from." All the kids were so precious! They stole my heart!