The Bridge Project – UTS students tutor newcomer children through Afghan Women’s Organization

A unique partnership is flourishing between UTS and the Afghan Women's Organization Refugee and Immigrant Services. It’s called the Bridge Project, where UTS students volunteer as tutors for refugee and newcomer children in grades 2 to 10, helping with homework, English language lessons and more. 

UTS students may be the teachers, but they learn just as much as their students. “This program fosters the global citizenship our school strives for,” says UTS Vice Principal Garry Kollins, who supervises the program at UTS. “And it helps students appreciate the world around them and is a place for them to give back to their local communities. This partnership is such an authentic experience for everyone involved." 

UTS S5 (Grade 11) tutor Sachin Peterson (pictured above) began volunteering in November 2019 to meet his required volunteer hours for school, and never stopped. He knows how fortunate he is to be attending UTS amid a group of highly academic and goal-oriented students who excel in the school environment. 

“The kids I tutor come from completely different situations than I do,” he says. “The opportunity to help them – through a powerful academic resource in UTS – is a really big motivator. The experience has been eye-opening, and I’ve been able to really widen my own perspective and learn to empathize with people from different, and potentially far more challenging backgrounds.” 

The Bridge Project is a partnership overseen by UTS Vice Principal Garry Kollins and Afghan Women's Organization Settlement Counsellor May Massijeh. 

Magical tutoring moments

There are those magical tutoring moments when it just clicks, like the time the grade 2 student Sachin currently tutors caught on immediately to a lesson in subtraction and regrouping. Last year, when the tutoring used to be in person at the organization’s centres and local schools, Sachin and his tutoring client also began shooting hoops together, and Sachin found himself making an effort to keep up on the latest basketball news to help build relationships with his student. 

While the main goal of the Bridge Project is for UTS students to support newcomer children with their homework and their English-language skills, the program also strives to build bridges between their worlds. 

UTS student volunteers who tutor refugee and newcomer children through the Bridge Project partnership with the Afghan Women's Organization, pictured with UTS Vice Principal Garry Kollins and Afghan Women's Organization Settlement Counsellor May Massijeh.

Picturing the possibilities

“With the connection that the children are creating with their tutors, we're hoping to impact more than their schoolwork,” says May Massijeh, a Settlement Counsellor at the Afghan Women’s Organization, who facilitates the partnership with UTS and connects refugee and newcomer children with the Homework Club. “We are really trying to make a rapport happen here, by assigning children to the same tutor. And the goal is for that child to feel comfortable with someone on a weekly basis, or even feel comfortable enough to do other fun activities with them, linking them to the larger world beyond their schools and households, expanding what they see and what’s available to them through the power of role models.” 

The Bridge Project has also recruited volunteer Arabic translators from other secondary schools to help the UTS tutors communicate with their students, when necessary.

The Bridge Project launched in the spring of 2018 when three UTS students – Miles Silvey '20, former UTS Co-Captain Andrei Comloson-Pop '20 and Vikita Mehta '19 – wanted to do something to support refugees from Syria and other countries. “Instead of starting something new on their own like UTS students usually do, they partnered with the Afghan Women’s Organization, which was already doing this kind of work,” says Garry Kollins.

The Afghan Women’s Organization provides settlement services to newcomers at four different locations in the Toronto, Scarborough, North York and Mississauga, with a special focus on women, their families, refugees and people who have experienced war and persecution. Currently all services are virtual due to the pandemic.  

May knows the experience some of the tutoring clients have faced firsthand. She came to Canada in 2016 from Syria and then completed her Master’s in environmental studies at York University, before starting at the Afghan Women’s Organization in August 2020. 

“When our children see their UTS tutors who are smart and doing well and able to help others, I feel that helps them picture more possibilities for their future.” The Homework Club also organizes virtual activities where the children can attend with their UTS tutors, such a recent event in May with the Arctic Reading Circle, an organization that helps children find joy in reading. 

Harnessing the power of Balance AI

The Bridge Project has also recently harnessed the power of artificial intelligence, by partnering with Dr Eunice Jang at University of Toronto’s Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE) to use their Balance AI platform, an online reading assessment tool for tutors and teachers. In May 2021, UTS student tutors began using the platform’s artificial intelligence to assess and improve their tutoring clients' reading comprehension, writing skills and literacy, and are keeping  journals to track insights and data on their students’ progress that will help the team at OISE improve the technology and further their literacy work.

Something to look forward to

The tutoring program has been running exclusively online in the COVID-19 pandemic. While the switch to online tutoring has been challenging, Sachin adapted by incorporating breaks or relaxed conversation in between focused lessons of 15 to 20 minutes.  

During this pandemic, everyone needs something to look forward to. 

“Seeing the smile on his face when we're getting a math problem or even when we’re just talking is priceless,” says Sachin. “Although, given the language barrier, helping the student with English skills is huge, with this pandemic it’s so important for him to have something to look forward to every week. I wouldn’t give that up for anything and I guess for me creating that optimistic sense in my students would be my biggest accomplishment.”