I hope this letter finds you healthy and feeling a renewed sense of optimism about the future. Although the ongoing pandemic and near-constant racialized violence continue to make this a uniquely challenging time, the last few months have also brought countless opportunities for learning, growth and fresh hope to our community. As you’ll see below, Enroot students contributed to public discourse on equity in STEM, explored careers across all sectors alongside several dozen professionals in our Virtual Career Fair, and shared their visions of success in a must-watch ‘What Does Success Mean to You’ video project. Our Alumni gathered for a heartwarming mini-reunion, filled with equal parts laughter and tears. Our Volunteers leaned into challenging conversations during Parts 3 and 4 of our year-long Unconscious Bias trainings, and shared their hidden talents in the first ever “Enroot’s Got Talent” talent show. Enroot’s staff and Board continue to push their own boundaries as antiracist leaders through trainings, action-oriented conversations, and the creation of our Strategic Plan for advancing equity at Enroot. As our high school seniors continue to get good news from colleges and other post-high school opportunities, we focus on our shared future, which is brighter than ever before.
Thank you for continuing to be a part of the Enroot family, and of the movement to advance educational equity for immigrant students!
Ben Clark
Executive Director
Ben Clark
Executive Director
Honoring Women’s History Beyond March
As we celebrated the beginning of spring in March, we also had the space and time to reflect on the importance of women in not only our culture and society, but also in breaking down boundaries and constraints that have been unjustly projected onto women. As an organization dedicated to equity, we believe it is important to recognize the bravery and resiliency of women not only during Women’s History Month, but throughout our lives, and remain committed to fighting for women’s empowerment by addressing the wage gap and underrepresentation in so many areas.
The Enroot team honored Women’s History Month by using our time together as a team to watch videos and have discussions on women voices and empowerment. We explored the United Nations’ video highlighting International Women's Day, which discusses the history of women’s rights and march for a more equal future. We also spent time exploring Oprah Magazine US's video that focuses on uplifting the voices and perspectives of women of color. Last but not least, we celebrated the important accomplishments and values of the incredible women on our Enroot team. We deeply value Enroot's mostly female-led staff and their work advancing our organization's important mission.
STEM Partnerships
A Virtual STEM Panel with Broad Institute
This spring, we partnered with Broad Institute to host an informative virtual STEM panel for our students. The Broad Institute panelists talked to our students about crafting a path in the STEM field. It was amazing to listen to a group of professionals that represented our students’ backgrounds, languages and ethnicities share their experiences in the STEM field with our students!
Our students were thoroughly engaged throughout and after the panel. We are so grateful for our partnership and time with Broad Institute and we believe we have some future scientists in our group after this thoughtful panel.
Boston Globe Panel Discussion with Biogen
Our amazing Enroot Somerville High School student Emily, and Executive Director Ben Clark, participated in a panel hosted by The Boston Globe and Biogen that addressed racial inequality in STEM education.
In an era where STEM education and opportunities aren’t accessible for so many individuals of marginalized backgrounds, we are thankful that conversations like this one are being held so we can push the envelope to include immigrant student voices in STEM education! We are incredibly proud of Emily for sharing her experiences and being a voice for her peers. We are honored to have partners like Biogen who are committed to advancing racial equity in STEM education.
Virtual Career Fair
We had the incredible opportunity to host a Virtual Career fair featuring Enroot partners Amgen, Google, First Republic Bank, Bunker Hill Community College, Boys and Girls Club of Boston, Mathematica, City of Somerville Summer Programs, Boston Museum of Science, Cambridge Mayor’s Program, and the Rian Immigrant Center! Our students interacted with a panel of professionals who shared their experiences and advice related to the fields of technology, medicine, financial services, sciences and the nonprofit sector.
A few important quotes from the Career Fair include:
“Don’t stop applying to get the position you want! A lot of it is luck and timing. I applied to my position several times before getting the role!”
“The policy world needs people with different views. Policies impact people’s lives and there is so much value in bringing your voice and experience into those settings and speaking for people who may not be able to speak on their own behalf.”
The Virtual Career Fair was a huge success with very active participation from our students. We hope that some of our students will be able to trace their future career decisions to the exposure that this Virtual Career Fair provided.
We LOVE our Alumni!
Moments like THESE remind us why we work so hard and stay committed to the passionate work we do on a daily basis.
We recently hosted an Enroot Alumni happy hour to reconnect, reminisce on past memories, and have some fun together! Let’s just say our alumni did NOT disappoint. We played fun icebreakers, reflected on the importance of Enroot in our lives, and went down memory lane dating all the way back to 1993. We are so grateful for our alumni network and their dedicated passion to remain engaged with Enroot in the capacity that they can. We can’t wait for our next alumni reunion!
What Does Success Mean To You?
Our wonderful Tufts University Tisch Scholar, Shariqa Rahman, created a heartwarming video titled “What Does Success Mean To You?” Over the past few months, Shariqa spent time interviewing our students on their own versions of “success”, and our students gave incredibly thoughtful responses that embody their own personal experiences as well as Enroot's mission. Please take a few minutes to check out the video!
Enroot’s Got Talent
If you read our last newsletter, you probably saw that we were looking forward to an exciting event planned by our Volunteer Committee. Our Volunteer Committee organized an Enroot’s Got Talent event and it was a huge success! In an hour-long spectacular headed by two MCs and a wonderful judge panel, our volunteers showcased their talents ranging from origami to poetry reading to singing and much more! We had a lot of fun and we hope you all stay tuned for our next Enroot’s Got Talent!
Unconscious Bias Trainings
For our Unconscious Bias Trainings 3 and 4, that happened in March and May, we focused on Trauma Informed care and how Enroot mentors and tutors can best apply trauma informed practices to their student support.. Our volunteers were very engaged and were so brave in absorbing information while self-reflecting and advancing the conversation. In training #4 we utilized Racial Affinity Groups to deepen the conversation and reduce the incidence of harm that can be an unintended by product of this type of learning in a multi-racial setting. Through sharing and hearing our stories, we hope to continue working actively against the implicit, explicit, institutional and internalized racism that affects BIPOC/immigrant communities.
Join Enroot as a Volunteer!
We are currently recruiting mentors and tutors to work with our students inside and outside the classroom for the upcoming academic year! If you are interested in providing academic and leadership support, college preparation support, English practice, and partnering with high school immigrant youth to maximize their potential, please consider applying!
Over the past year, we have focused on expanding and advancing our work in the areas of Diversity, Belonging, Inclusion and Equity across our entire Enroot community. Out of a group of hundreds of applicants, Enroot was selected as one of the three organizations to participate in the “Essential Community Practices for Racial Equity Cohort” which will be led by Trinity Boston Connects over the next 6 months. We are excited for this multi-month learning opportunity and consulting engagement, which will include deep exploration and action planning around Racial Equity, Trauma Inclusion, and Restorative Practices. These sessions are coming at a critical time for Enroot and we are so thankful to be in a position to make this important work a priority.
Contribute to our Spring Giving Campaign
Advancing educational equity with and for immigrant students is more important than ever before. In an unprecedented year of obstacles and adversity, our students not only persisted but handled this year with incredible grace in a mostly virtual school year. Additionally, we are excited to announce that several of the college sophomores who enrolled in our first College Success Program Cohort in 2018 are graduating right now!
Your generous support is making a difference and we hope you can contribute to the brighter days ahead! We could not have accomplished so much over the past year without generous contributions from individuals like you. We hope you continue to invest in our students’ success by contributing to our Spring Giving Campaign.
I hope you have been enjoying celebrating Black History Month and that you’re excited to catch up on some of the inspiring things happening at Enroot. It’s been a uniquely challenging period for our Enroot students and community. Each day brings new hills to climb and fresh reminders of how far we have to go, both to move beyond the COVID-19 crisis and to build an equitable society. As the vaccines give us a chance to see beyond COVID, I’ve been reflecting on the words of award-winning poet Sonya Renee Taylor:
"We will not go back to normal. Normal never was. Our pre-corona existence was not normal other than we normalized greed, inequity, exhaustion, depletion, extraction, disconnection, rage, hoarding, hate and lack. We should not long to return, my friends. We are being given the opportunity to stitch a new garment. One that fits all of humanity and nature.”
Even as our community grapples with such persistent struggles, we also have so much to celebrate and be grateful for. Some of the exciting things in this edition of our newsletter include: reflections on celebrating Black History Month, STEM Career exploration activities with Momenta Pharmaceuticals and Fidelity Investments, laughter-filed group mentoring nights, less-fun but important FAFSA workshops, our “My Why Enroot” video series, a warm welcome back to our incredible interns Mariam and Jefferson, and even a call for brave volunteers willing to share their talents in our volunteer talent show.
Thanks for continuing to support our students, from near and far, as we march together toward brighter days. I hope you share our sense of optimism about what the future holds and our pride in being part of this very special Enroot family.
With gratitude,
Ben Clark
Executive Director
Honoring Black History Beyond This Month
As we come to the end of Black History Month, we are left reflecting not only on all that Black people have endured throughout this country’s history, but also on all that our Black communities have contributed to the making of this country. As an organization that is committed to prioritizing racial equity and advocacy, we believe it is important to center the inequities and resilience of Black people not only during Black History Month, but throughout the year and throughout our lives.
The Enroot team honored Black History Month by using our times together as a team to share articles, podcasts, videos, and films centered around Black resilience, Black joy, Black art, Black leadership, and Black history in the making. We explored everything from the New York Times’ 1619 Project on the impact of slavery on our nation to Stacy Abrams' documentary, All In: The Fight for Democracy, on the voter suppression the Black communtiy has had to face. One of our favorites was a compilation of Trevor Noah interviews, “10 Black People Making History”. We also had the privilege of having guest speakers, Kylie Webster-Cazeau and Meggie Noel – the leaders of a student led movement to unearth the inequities Black students face at the historic Boston Latin School – speak to our team about the importance of student voice in racial equity advocacy.
Exciting Partnerships!
A Virtual STEM Panel with Momenta Pharmaceuticals
This month, we had the incredible privilege of partnering with Momenta Pharmaceuticals to present our students with an amazing virtual panel of STEM professionals. Our students heard from six professionals, all of whom are immigrants themselves, on the winding paths that have brought them to where they are now. It was particularly powerful for our students to hear from not only immigrants, but women of color in STEM, so that they could see themselves in these wonderful role models!
Following the panel, students were given the opportunity to participate in breakout sessions with these professionals and our students proceeded to ask incredibly thoughtful and insightful questions of their presenters.
We are so grateful for partnerships that have blossomed like ours with Momenta and we are so excited to see them grow further!
A Virtual Field Trip to Fidelity
In addition to our virtual field trip to Momenta, our students also had the opportunity to take a virtual field trip to Fidelity this month! Two years ago we had an in person field trip to Fidelity, where our students were given the chance to meet Fidelity employees one-on-one and learn more about what led them to their career paths. Of the nearly 50 Fidelity employees who participated that day, one of them was Sameer Ahmed– an immigrant himself. After that Fidelity field trip, Sameer was so inspired by Enroot’s work that today he is one of our wonderful Board members!
Sameer’s engagement with Enroot sewed the seeds for this month’s virtual field trip, a Financial Industry Career Workshop, where students had the opportunity to hear from Fidelity employees of many different backgrounds on how they got into finance and what different career paths exist for students like ours. After hearing from these incredible professionals, our students took part in breakout room sessions to ask their own questions and get to know the field of finance more deeply.
We are so honored to have partners like Fidelity and community members like Sameer who go above and beyond to open up a world of possibilities to our students!
Students at this year’s virtual field trip to Fidelity, getting to know Fidelity staff who are immigrants themselves, like our students.
Virtual Mentoring Going Strong
We are so happy to say that Enroot’s virtual mentoring nights have been going strong! College Success is continuing their Monthly Mentoring Nights with fun activities and virtual games like show and tell, charades, and crafting vision boards. We were also so excited to welcome back former Enroot staff member and good friend, Tamia Burkett, who shared her journey with us and demonstrated the power of storytelling. On another special night, students and mentors were challenged to twin their outfits, and one pair went the extra mile to bring their matching kittens onto the Zoom!
One student commented on how the mentoring night uplifted his spirits:
“Really though! This was fun. I feel like I am revived! I was moody before this zoom call 🤦🏾♂️, but now I am coolin’” – Lubens
Special Feature: FAFSA Workshop
While filling out the FAFSA may seem daunting, it’s definitely better with friends! With help from the Cambridge Economic Opportunity Committee (CEOC), we were so happy to be able to host a FAFSA drop-in event for our College Success students. At the event, students and their mentors got together in breakout rooms to work on their forms. Enroot staff was also available during the workshop, ready to answer questions and help the pairs. A special thanks to Raymond Chicoye and Tina Alu from the CEOC who gave an amazing overview presentation of the FAFSA and bounced around between breakout rooms to help clarify confusions.
“My Why Enroot” Video Series
We are so excited to share with you all our My Why Enroot campaign! My Why Enroot is a video series in which students, alumni, staff, volunteers, and board members share what makes them proud to be a part of Enroot. We hope that in hearing from our community about those who are working tirelessly to support immigrant students through the COVID crises, the anti-immigrant sentiment of our country today, and the ups and downs of being a teenager new to this country – you’ll know why immigrant youth appreciate Enroot now more than ever!
Click here to hear from our incredible students, alumni, staff, volunteers, and board members.
Welcoming Back Mariam and Jefferson!
We are welcoming back two incredible interns to our Enroot team – Mariam AlAdsani and Jefferson Xu. Read more about Mariam and Jefferson and why we are so excited to have them on our team!
Things To Look Forward To
Enroot Talent Show Coming This Spring!
Our Volunteer Committee is currently in the middle of planning our next spring event, Enroot’s Got Talent. We are currently in the process of signing up participants! If you are a current volunteer and have a talent you want to showcase, reach out to organizers, Ava and Nathalieto sign up. We hope that this night is full of fun! There will be prizes for the top 3 best talents!
Upcoming Unconscious Bias Trainings
There are more Unconscious Bias trainings coming up for our current volunteers. We are in the process of designing two trainings on our Unconscious Bias series, which will deepen volunteer’s understanding of a trauma informed approach to supporting students. As we continuously think about the effects of institutional, interpersonal, ideological, and internalized racism in BIPOC/immigrant communities, we seek to provide a backbone and tools on how to approach safe and productive conversations with Enroot students.
Give Back To Our Immigrant Community!
As we come up on almost a full year of the COVID-19 crisis in the U.S., we must acknowledge that our immigrant youth have been enduring housing vulnerability, food insecurity, health inequities, and barriers to education – throughout this year and far before. We ask you to please consider donating to Enroot to help us better support our students with one on one mentoring and social-emotional support through these incredibly hard times. Thank you for your continued support of our students and of immigrant communities everywhere!
As the seasons change and we embrace an incredible opportunity for change as a country, Enroot is also celebrating a number of changes and firsts in our own community. We were sad to say goodbye to our amazing Director of Development and Strategic Initiatives, Dananai Morgan, and so grateful for all her contributions to our organization and our students. Over the summer we welcomed 5 fantastic new team members, including our new Program Manager, Vania Loredo, our Tisch Fellow, Shariqa Rahman, and our new AmeriCorps fellows, Ayla Wallace, Cassidy Alford and Regina Carey. We also welcomed 5 outstanding new members to our Board of Directors, all of whom are people of color and first or second generation immigrants, and who will strengthen our Board’s capacity in countless ways. We are thrilled this includes a second Program Alumnus joining our Board. We held our first “Enroot Celebrates Immigrant Leaders” event, featuring a deeply inspiring panel, moving performances by U-Meleni Mhlaba-Adebo, and the awarding of the first Enroot Annual Award for Immigrant Leadership to Alazar Ayele, Manager of Biogen’s Community Lab. Most importantly, our students have been thrilled to connect (or reconnect!) with their mentors, tutors, internship supervisors, Enroot staff, and each other as we kick off our first school year of virtual programming!
Thank you for your steadfast support of the Enroot family!
Ben Clark
Executive Director
Kicking Off a Virtual Year!
In this past week, all cohorts of our high school programming kicked off the year with their virtual mentoring nights. At each of these kick off nights, new students met their mentors for the very first time and returning student-mentor pairs we're reconnected after the summer. Here's what one student shared in excitement for being part of Enroot this year:
The College Success program hosted Enroot’s first ever virtual match night on the evening of September 23rd, for the 58 students participating this year. We connected 50 new mentor-students pairs and created a space for continuing matches to meet again! Students and mentors had a fantastic time playing Enroot’s version of the newlywed game, called “mentor-mentee trivia”. Students championed questions like: “what is your mentor’s weird food combination?” and “Does your mentee have siblings, and how many?”.
New this year! College Success is starting Monthly Mentoring Nights to bring our community of students and volunteers together. We hosted our first Monthly Mentoring Night on October 7th, complete with a time-management activity in pairs and a competitive game of pictionary in groups! The best part of the night was an impromptu jam session between two students who treated us all to live music on their drums and guitar. We are looking forward to the rest of our mentoring sessions!
Dag and Luben's jam session during our first College Success Mentoring Night!
Returning Volunteers Night!
We had an amazing time reconnecting with our volunteers who are ready to start this academic year. Volunteers had the opportunity to brainstorm ideas on how to support their students virtually and things that can make their online experience much smoother. We are excited to see how these amazing ideas come to fruition in the next few months.
This year, our volunteer program has gone virtual and nationwide! We have accepted volunteers outside of Massachusetts, who will be supporting our students during this academic year. Because of the timeline and the changes, we are still in the process of matching new volunteers with students. While this has taken longer than expected, we believed that supporting students’ transitions to virtual learning was the main priority.
This year we redesigned our volunteer trainings to put a much greater emphasis on equity and cultural consciousness. We expanded our cultural consciousness training from one stand-alone session to a series of 4 workshops. The purpose of these trainings is to guide our volunteers to lean in to challenging conversations about identity, privilege, and power. We believe that having an equity training series for this year is crucial for the development of more inclusive spaces for our students, and more successful relationships between students and volunteers.
Enroot Celebrates Immigrant Leaders!
On October 22, 2020, Enroot celebrated first and second-generation immigrant leaders and their essential contributions to advancing the movement for racial equity and the response to the COVID-19 crisis. 'Enroot Celebrates Immigrant Leaders' included performances by the amazing U-Meleni Mhlaba-Adebo, followed by a panel featuring Betty Francisco, Michel Bamani, Yvette Modestin, and Chirfi Guindo. 120 community members joined us for this virtual event and were able able to engage in the incredibly rich dialogue our panelists fostered by bringing their vulnerable and authentic lens to each question. We also had the distinct pleasure of honoring Alazar Ayele with the inaugural Enroot Annual Award for Immigrant Leadership in recognition of his incredible and tireless work advancing STEM learning for young people, particularly students like ours, for whom he is a great role model. Listen to U-Meleni’s beautiful performances and our panelists unique advice for immigrant students here:
Thank you to our ALL STAR team of Enroot staff, Dananai Morgan, Lima James, Natasha Karunaratne, and Ben Clark for all the hard work putting this event together. And thanks to our sponsors - Biogen, Google, William Blair, Hunton Andrews Kurth, Microsoft New England, and East Boston Savings Bank for making this amazing night possible.
Welcome to the Team!
We are so excited to welcome our new Program Manager, Vania Loredo, our Tisch Fellow, Shariqa Rahman, and our amazing Massachusetts Promise Fellows, Ayla Wallace, Cassidy Alford, and Regina Carey to the team!
Enroot is thrilled to welcome five amazing new leaders to our Board of Directors! Nora Gay, Mahlet Aklu, Bulbul Kaul, Khushbu Webber, and Sameer Ahmed are each incredibly inspired, and inspiring, leaders, who will have an enormous impact on the strength of our Board, the direction of our organization, and ultimately the lives of our students, past, present and future.
In addition to their many talents and accomplishments, we are excited to be welcoming more Board members who can relate to the immigrant experience through their own, and their families’, experiences, and who share core aspects of their identity with our students. Their commitments to advancing Diversity, Belonging, Inclusion and Equity in their own workplaces and communities will help accelerate our own efforts to become an anti-racist and inclusive organization. We are especially excited that Nora Gay will become the second Enroot program alumus to join our Board, bringing essential first-person alumni perspective to each and every Board conversation. We’re grateful to welcome Nora back to Enroot and look forward to welcoming more alumni to the Board in future years.
Below are brief bios introducing each new member. To read more about them, check out our website.
Thank you Nora, Mahlet, Bulbul, Khushbu and Sameer for your dedication to Enroot’s mission advancing educational equity for immigrant students and welcome to the Enroot Board of Directors!
Stay Tuned for Our Video Campaign!
In the coming weeks we’ll be launching our first ever video campaign, with students, volunteers, our team, and our board sharing why they choose to be part of the Enroot community! We would love for you to be one of the people to help us achieve our goal of raising funds to support our work with Enroot students. Stay tuned and be sure to tell us why YOU are inspired to be a part of the Enroot community and support immigrant youth!
Enroot is a nonprofit dedicated to empowering immigrant youth to achieve academic, career, and personal success through inspiring out-of-school experiences.
As we continue through this incredibly challenging period we remain grateful for all the positive things happening in our Enroot community and determined to celebrate all that our students are accomplishing. We hope you will find this newsletter uplifting and that it helps you continue to feel connected to the Enroot community during this isolating time. In the section “Discussing Racial Equity with our Volunteers and Alumni” you will find hyperlinks to several resources that may be helpful as you continue to join us in taking anti-racist action, as part of the larger movement for racial equity. I believe we have an unprecedented opportunity for change before us right now - but fully seizing on it will require sustained effort from each and every one of us. If we all remain fully committed to playing our part in the months and years ahead, we can become a society marked by more universal dignity, equal opportunity and shared prosperity.
Thank you for finding your unique role in this movement and for your ongoing support of Enroot students!
Ben Clark Executive Director
Celebrating Juneteenth at Enroot
This year, Enroot joined many organizations in designating Juneteenth as one of the official holidays we observe each year. We closed our office on Friday, June 19th in observance of Juneteenth and our team took the day to celebrate Black history, Black art, Black culture, Black beauty, Black joy, and Black lives. It was especially important for us right now in the context of the historic re-invigorated movement for racial justice that we took time to reflect even more on our nation's history of oppression that still continues. We encouraged our supporters, friends, and networks to do the same, and more importantly to lift up and celebrate our Black sisters and brothers. As a team we identified articles, books, podcasts, films, and events that were happening in our community that we learned from and participated in.
Even though the Emancipation Proclamation was made effective in 1863, it could not be implemented in places still under Confederate control. As a result, in the westernmost Confederate state of Texas, enslaved people would not be free until much later. Freedom finally came on June 19, 1865, when some 2,000 Union troops arrived in Galveston Bay, Texas and announced that the more than 250,000 enslaved black people in the state were free by executive decree. This day, June 19th, came to be known as "Juneteenth" by the newly freed people in Texas and is often referred to as “America’s Second Independence Day.” (Source: Smithsonian)
Wrapping up the School Year
Although Enroot could not deliver programming in-person this spring, we remain committed to providing a multi-faceted support system for students throughout the COVID-19 public health crisis. Our students were quick to adapt and did their best to remain engaged with school despite the many challenges presented by the transition to distance learning.
We provided programming virtually during this challenging time using phone, email, text, social media, and video conferencing to meet students where they are, and on platforms that are most accessible to them. Programming like post-secondary preparedness workshops, Pictionary mentoring sessions, math learning circles, volunteer trivia night and mingle, leadership mentoring, and ‘lunch and learn’ sessions were all provided virtually. Junior workshops focused on college applications, two-year versus four-year college, certificate programs, resources available to support their application process, changes to college admissions and decision process due to COVID-19, and top three things students should be thinking about and doing right now in current circumstances.
Five of our College Success students came together to form our Facebook Launch Team for virtual engagement. These students launched our College Success Facebook group and have become ambassadors of the group for their peers. We've hosted two Facebook live events to engage the College Success cohort, with 50 students participating. We discussed updates about changing college policies, FAFSA deadlines, and suggestions for staying grounded and balanced during COVID-19. This has been a great success particularly in a moment when schools and colleges are seeing a decline in engagement of students with curriculum and program content.
Virtual End of Year Celebrations
Traditionally, we wrap up the school year with our End of Year Celebrations that have historically marked the culmination of hard work, persistence, and joyous memories. This year we hosted our very first Virtual End of Year Celebrations. Our mentors, tutors, and students had a lot to say about how much they enjoyed working with each other, learning from each other, and being a part of the Enroot community, especially as we confront this crisis together. Here is what one amazing mentor had to say about working with Dennis from our Somerville Program:
Our College Success Virtual End of Year Celebration was also a big success, with over 40 participants and two amazing speakers. One of our sophomores, Ana, delivered a beautiful speech about her transition from El Salvador to Somerville High School, to Bunker Hill Community College, and now onto Anna Maria College. Alumnus Igor DeCruz also spoke about graduating from CRLS in the early 2000's and his progression to become a Vice President at Silicon Valley Bank. He spoke directly to our current college students and gave important tips and advice as they continue to progress through their college years.
Ana said: “At first, it was scary. I am the first in my family to attend college, so I had no idea what to do or how to enroll. And being an immigrant didn’t help at all, but I found good people in my way like people from Enroot. I remember that I didn't have time to attend mentoring when I was in high school, because I was working or watching over my little sister. But, people from Enroot always found a way to make it work for me, and even though I didn't make it easy for them to keep me active in the program or for me to attend meetings. They were so flexible and made sure that I was getting the right help that I needed. Thanks to them I was able to enroll early in college and made an easier transition from high school to college. They both have been there for me, and not only for school. They helped to answer any question (from work, personal, or school) to help me emotionally, mentally, and in any way possible for them. Having someone to help me and just to know that I can count on them gave me such mental peace. Enroot, Enroot has been a blessing, and I have so much to thank them for… In the coming fall, I will be transferring to Anna Maria College to a Nursing Major, and YES I worked hard for this, but I want to acknowledge Georgia, my mentors, and Enroot in general for giving me the support that I needed and for always believing in me.”
We are so extremely thrilled to hear this from Ana and grateful that we were able to support her through her high school years and transition to post-secondary education. We can’t wait to see what the future holds for her!
We are excited to go into our third year of College Success programming and already hosted orientations the week of July 6th to welcome our incoming student cohort!
LGBTQIA+ Highlight From Pride Month
A flag created by Graphic designer Daniel Quasar to emphasize inclusion and progression. The flag includes black and brown stripes to represent marginalized LGBT communities of color, along with the colors pink, light blue and white, which are used on the Transgender Pride Flag.
Following the historic Supreme Court ruling in June protecting gay and transgender workers from workplace discrimination, the LGBTQIA+ community celebrated a long-sought victory during this year’s Pride Month. The LGBTQIA+ community has accomplished many strides from the first documented gay rights organization in 1924, to the first gay pride parade in 1970, to where we are now. As we celebrated Pride Month in the midst of an epidemic, it is not lost on us to remember the ongoing attempts to discriminate on the basis of gender identity and the ongoing violence against Black trans people. We’ve come a long way, but this shows us that the fight for LGBTQIA+ rights must continue.
Discussing Racial Equity with Volunteers & Alumni
Enroot convened two Racial Equity Listening Circles for Volunteers and Alumni in June in order to begin a dialogue about the racist violence and murder that continues to be perpetrated on Black, Indigenous and People of Color. We held this intentional space to connect with our volunteers and alumni and hear their thoughts on the movement for racial justice and equity during this pivotal time in our country's history. We utilized elements of our Cultural Consciousness Training and the Mapping and Defining our Role in a Social Change Ecosystem tool, created by Deepa Iyer, to help us in our breakout groups. We provided resources for conversation and personal education such as the New York Times’ 1619 Project, Anti-Racism Resources For White People, and an Anti-Racist Reading List. During one meeting a volunteer shared a resource, Anti-Racism Daily, led by Nicole Cardoza. Several of us have found this to be a really valuable resource to expand and sustain our daily anti-racism practice. We look forward to continuing more meaningful conversations like this one in the months to come.
Virtual Chair Yoga Session with our Volunteer Leigh Netcoh
We are grateful to our volunteer mentor Leigh Netcoh for providing a Virtual Chair Yoga session for our students and staff. This was a much needed self-care and well-being activity prompting us to be more mindful of taking care of ourselves as we all continue to work remotely.
Enroot is a nonprofit dedicated to empowering immigrant youth to achieve academic, career, and personal success through inspiring out-of-school experiences.
I'm excited to share a video message thanking all of you for standing by our students right now and providing updates on how our students are doing during this trying time. The disproportionate impacts of COVID-19 go beyond the physical realm, and also include mental and economic well-being for our students and their families. In spite of this, Enroot students are among the most courageous young people I have ever met and they continue to rise to the occasion even during these extremely challenging times.
I'd also like to share an Op-Ed I wrote recently, in the Cambridge Chronicle on April 16, 2020, calling for a response to the coronavirus that is explicit in disproportionately allocating resources to the Black, Latinx and immigrant families who have been disproportionately impacted.
Please see both below.
Thanks as always for your ongoing dedication to Enroot students!
Ben Clark Executive Director
Op-Ed: Disproportionate Impacts Require a Disproportionate Response. Read it here.
Emergency Immigrant Cash Assistance Fund
As you know, the immediate closure of schools, businesses, and most offices disrupted our students' lives in countless ways. This is a particularly challenging time for immigrant families for many reasons, including language barriers and fear related to deportation and becoming a public charge. This crisis has also increased the incidence of xenophobic and racist attacks, especially toward immigrants.
In recognition of the sudden catastrophic loss of wages among most students and families, Enroot launched the Emergency Immigrant Cash Assistance Fund to provide immediate cash assistance to students and families. 100% of funds raised go to directly support students and their families during the COVID-19 crisis. Over 330 people have donated to the Fund to support students and their families. Learn more about the Fund here.
One student said upon receiving funds:
“Thank you for everything you guys are doing! It's amazing to know that you guys really care about us”.
It has been heartwarming for us to see the many wonderful comments, like the ones below, left as volunteers and individuals made donations. Thank You!
“Mentoring through them has changed me and my mentee for the better.”
“Mentoring for Enroot is the highlight of my week. My student has inspired me more than she realizes. Keep providing a launchpad for youth to break through barriers and reach their full potential!”
“I love Enroot's all-in commitment to the students you work with!”
Thank you so much to everyone for generously contributing to the Fund and supporting our students and their families with us during this difficult time.
Virtual Programming
Enroot has transitioned our mentoring, tutoring, post-secondary preparedness, workforce readiness, college success coaching, and social-emotional support to virtual support with all of our staff working remotely. We developed a remote mentoring and tutoring guide to assist our volunteers and continue to be available to our students virtually for check-ins. We are also keeping well-being activities like meditation and exercise workout routines in mind as we engage with students during this challenging time. We hosted a virtual Post-secondary Preparedness Workshop for high school seniors, a fun Pictionary mentoring session for our Explore and Emerge cohort, and have a virtual Volunteer Mingle session planned. Last week, we provided a virtual CRLS leadership mentoring, Lunch and Learn, a stretch and meditation session, and virtual volunteer trivia night! Enroot’s support becomes critical for English Learner students who in addition to language and socio-economic barriers must now navigate distance learning. We are proud to be able to continue to support students and grateful for the tireless work of our volunteers and staff. Please consider making a donation to support our ongoing operating costs.
We miss our students so much and decided to create a Virtual Greeting from all of us to our students. It is important for us to make sure that students know we are there for them even though we are not seeing them in person everyday. Check out the Virtual Greeting video below.
Post-secondary Preparedness Workshops
We successfully hosted virtual workshops for high school Juniors and Seniors. The Junior workshop focused on getting students to think about life after high school, future college applications, two-year versus four-year college, certificate programs, and resources available to them as they start to think about their future journey. The Cambridge and Somerville Senior Workshop was provided to students who have applied to four-year schools and their mentors. Sessions discussed with students how Covid-19 has changed the college admissions and decision process, the top three things students should be thinking about and doing right now in current circumstances. We also introduced students to our College Success program.
Virtual College Success Coaching
Five college success students came together to form our Facebook Launch Team. In an afternoon of brainstorming, strategizing, and creating, they launched our College Success Facebook group and have become ambassadors of the group for their peers. Included in the launch session was a brief tutorial on how to include the activity on their resumes. We've hosted two Facebook live videos to engage with the College Success cohort, with 50 students participating, which has been a productive tool of engagement with a steady stream of comments and conversation coming in from students. These videos include updates about changing college policies, FAFSA deadlines, and suggestions for staying grounded and balanced during the quarantine. We've also been doing 1:1 video sessions through google hangouts which has been an excellent tool for individual student needs and providing social-emotional support to each student.
Volunteers & Alumni Engagement Updates
We kicked off our very first Volunteer Committee meeting of 2020 with eleven amazing volunteers! During the meeting, we discussed the committee's mission, responsibilities, and brainstormed fun events for the Spring. We were so excited to see a ton of excitement around volunteer engagement and are so lucky to have gathered such a fantastic group.
Last Friday, we launched our first “Virtual Alumni Coffee Hour”, hosted by our Alumni Committee. Graduates from 1993, 2006, 2016 and many other years joined us! It was powerful to hold space for the larger Enroot family to come together. We are connected to over 400 program alumni, many of whom have roots in the Cambridge area. This year marks the second year of Enroot’s Alumni Committee.
In addition to these updates about our current work, we'd also love to share some of the wonderful things that were happening just before schools shut down.
Updates from Somerville Program
Professional Attire Fashion Show
Leadership Seminar students recently had so much fun participating in a Professional Attire Fashion Show to prepare them for the March career night. The fashion show featured two rounds of competition - one for the best business casual outfit and one for the best business formal outfit. In both rounds, student teams presented in their outfit and a panel of staff judges gave a 1 to 10 scale rating and feedback. Students also practiced professional handshakes, greetings, reviewed two faux resumes and practiced making decisions on which imaginary applicant to invite for an interview for an Enroot Summer Intern position. We have had to postpone the career night due to the current public health crisis, however, we look forward to students being able to utilize these skills when we reschedule or potentially organize a virtual career night.
Who IS a Mathematician?
Enroot spent several months planning and developing math learning circles in partnership with Tina Cardone, Sue Cusack and Hilary Kreisberg from Lesley University. In our first session in March, our students got to be creative as they thought about and drew what a mathematician looks like, ideated and collaborated in teams about what characteristics mathematicians have. A quick google search of images of mathematicians affirmed stereotypes and showed the jarring lack of representation in mathematics. Students' perspectives began to shift as they researched and learned about mathematicians of different genders and ethnicities. "Anyone can be a mathematician'' and "I want to be a mathematician'' were just a few of the sentiments echoed in the room through this experience. Thanks to virtual programming capacity, we hosted our second math learning circle virtually with students and Lesley University focusing on playful math thinking two weeks ago! We continue to be so grateful to the Biogen Foundation for providing the funding to make this programming possible as part of the Biogen STAR initiative. #BiogenSTAR #STEM
Victory for Enroot students on the Somerville High School Robotics Team!
We are so proud of our students who participated in the FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC) via Highlander Robotics, the Somerville High School FIRST Robotics Competition Team. A robot named Obi Munch Kenobi-was designed, built, programmed, tested, and driven by Enroot students on the Highlander Robotics team. A Somerville High School (SHS) junior who is a second-year Enroot Leadership Cohort student, served as the robot operator. And another student, a SHS junior who is an Enroot Emerge Cohort student (and Explore Cohort student last year), served as the human player. Hats off to our students for making it to the semi-finals and winning a prestigious award from FRC! Read more about the competition here.
Cambridge Program
Mentoring Profile: Midline and Deborah
Midline, one of our current seniors at CRLS who has been an Enroot Leadership student for 3 years, thought that she was not going to get into any of the colleges/universities of her choice. However, she got into all 4 schools that she applied to! We are so excited for her and her accomplishments!
"The hallmark of mentoring Midline is how diligent she is, taking ten honors courses during her tenure at CRLS in order to prepare herself for university level work. She follows through with all the opportunities that Enroot provides and has been a role model for other immigrant students who have college aspirations. She applied to four colleges and was accepted at all four. Midline plans to major in biology and she will be pursuing a nursing degree." Said Deborah Downes, Midline’s mentor and Enroot Board member.
CCTV Internship
Lights! Camera! Action! Cambridge students enjoyed an evening showcasing the videos they created at CCTV as part of their internship experience. Students received certificates for their video productions and amazed the audience, which included CCTV staff and Enroot staff, with their creativity and hard work! By participating in the internship, students get experience, training, and exposure to everything that makes a television station function. Students experience anything from live cable-casting, media production, computer lab supervision, training and education, and many administrative responsibilities. And just this week, two students, Harry and Biruk, both received the CCTV Youth Award at CCTV's annual event which was held as a Zoom event.
Enroot is a nonprofit dedicated to empowering immigrant youth to achieve academic, career, and personal success through inspiring out-of-school experiences.
