On Tuesday I got 5 Junior Volunteers to come to the Tuesday Night Clinic. They all went on the Junior Class Trip to Brownsville (the one that centered on immigration). I remember when I went to El Paso I came back wanting to make a difference but it was so hard to find ways to get involved with immigration without being an attorney. The Tuesday Night Clinic provides the perfect opportunity.
We all got there at 6:30 and met with Tammy, the head of the clinic, and spoke to her about the basics of the clinic for a while. We then got a room and brought all the kids in. We tried to engage the older kids because Tammy said there was a problem engaging them. We brought in art supplies like model magic and paper and crayons.
It was so nice to see the Junior Volunteer’s engaging with the kids. Some nice incidents:
- Nika is from Croatia and didn’t speak any Spanish. Most of the kids spoke Spanish so she was struggling to find people to volunteer with. Then a little girl ran in. And guess what her name was: Nika!! She was from Russia and since Nika spoke Croatian they could communicate. It was so adorable
- Mawena didnt speak any Spanish and was finding it hard to bond with the kids. I then later saw her with one kid using google translate to speak with her. It was so cool to see them bridge the language barrier through technology
- We had someone come in and have a mini dance party with the kids. All the kids from all over the world got to dance together, language matter, religion didnt matter, all that mattered was the music.
All in all, it was an amazing experience and I am so happy that I got to get more people to volunteer! I can’t wait to see what the future holds.