After School Program For Bantu Somali Students

1.What is the name of the organization you want to work with or use this semester?

2.What problem do you want to solve?

3.Is there a project or program already in place, or do you need to create one with the help of grant funding? Explain.
 

Somali Bantu Association Community delightfully presents this project proposal for your reconsideration. The school anticipates to partnering with you in provision of intervention program for our Bantu Somali students with humble backgrounds. Somali Bantu Association Community has over 100 Bantu Somalis student who risk dropping out of school due to lack of tuition fee and other necessities. The primary purpose of the After School plan is to assist all affected scholars learn without disruption about tuition across all grades. Their studying will enable the Lewiston-Auburn literacy level to improve hence the community social stature as a whole.

Somali Bantu Association Community has been piloting the program, and the school feeding course with a manageable group of students from extremely needy backgrounds has borne commendable improvements with most of the students heightening their study to college levels.  After School program enables the students learn without disruption, besides offering them training from professional classroom teachers.

Somali Bantu Association Community has seen success that is quantifiable, and we are in the quest to expand our After School course to increase reading and math scores for the children in middle and high school from 6th graders-12th graders in Lewiston area. Our proposal requests $54,632 that covers paid personnel, supplies, and Overhead of the students.

We acknowledge the Succeed Foundation for deciding to help assist our students develops their reading skills as well as enhancing their math score via our new studying program. Kindly contact me a through 254-0707-6000-18xx in case you require any further details or have any concerns regarding this proposal.

Thank you,

Yusuf Mohammed

Chief Special Studies Coordinator

 Somali Bantu Association Community

 254 Lewiston Auburn,

LA 1234 

Studying Performance for the underperforming students: Bantu Somalis

Submitted to: Succeed Foundation

Date of submission: April 16, 2018

Yusuf Mohammed Special Studies Coordinator Somali Bantu Association Community 254 Lewiston Auburn-, LA 1234 0070-0760-0018 x342 

After School: Enhancing studying Performance for underperforming learners

Somali Bantu Association Community, in Lewiston Auburn, LA is pursuing a grant with the intention to enhance our After School Program with the goal of assisting all of our at stake scholars. It aims to heighten reading and math scores for the children in middle and high school from 6th graders-12th graders in Lewiston area to their peers and attain the professionalism required by the curriculum. The target by the institution is to see come the end of the year the students will have developed their math score by at least 10 percent, enhanced reading speed together with reading skills by at least two grade levels. The After School course is grounded on the most recent study entailing operational studying outlines. Funding for $54,632   is requested to covers paid personnel, supplies, and Overhead of the students. 

Objectives

Somali Bantu Association Community has more than 120 students identified to be at risk in their performance in math score grades and reading skills which also encompasses the entire effective studying methods and practices. The dismal performance in the two areas primarily is due to economic and language-based a difficulty that is on the rise in Lewiston area. Somali Bantu Association Community is qualified for very needy and urgent funds and denying these bright minds a chance to improve their studies in the mentioned areas they are guaranteed to be losing hope and drop out of school in the long run.

Somali Bantu Association Community After School project will enable under-performing Bantu Somali learners to raise their reading skills and math score through utilization of the learning supplies, hiring more paid teachers, recruit voluntary teachers and establish some activities for youth. According to Somali Bantu Community leaders, there are over 3000 Somali Bantus in Lewiston-Auburn area. Though Somalis have large families-average 6.5 children per family in general, Bantus families-average seven children per family. That means hundreds of Somali Bantus attend Lewiston Public schools. Seventeen percent (17%) of Lewiston High students are Somali Bantus, close to Twenty percent (20%) of Lewiston Middle school students are Somali Bantus.

•    These children came in the U.S. with no educational background. Bantus High School drop rate is the highest compared with other ethnicity or even with other Somalis.
•    Bantu youth are getting lost in an American society that is not inherent to them, while at the same time, they have dropped Bantu culture.
•    This is causing complexities, confusion and a crisis in their real identities.
•    Without strong inspirational programming, they cannot achieve belief in their Bantu identification, which will enable them to develop strong characters for themselves and also toward their new country.

Hiring more teachers and investing in this community could significantly make a positive impact on many children and their families. A little bit more of extra recourses would instigate the feeling of respect for different culture and norms that will help them to build their consciousness about diversity, respect for others’ cultural identities and develop skills to breakaway with stereotypes and prejudices. Lack of cultural competency will disorient the child, and therefore a systematic education is needed to ingratiate within them a sense of belonging. Cultural diversity and awareness has the potential to help the students develop cognitive and critical skills 

The purpose of the After School Project is to enable under-performing students and students with poor math scores improve their reading skills to allow them to perform well in their elementary school and develop the reading skills that will is vital n their future learning in higher levels. Studies have revealed impending danger for poor readers, who are more likely to be slow or under-performing in the classroom, absentee from school, and more damaging risk of terminating their learning.

The main objectives include:

1. Implementing a quantifiable development in reading speed, math consolidation, and reading concentration extent. The intention is that the scholars will enhance their study speed crafts and also grow their math scores by at least two grade levels and 10 percent respectively by the end of the academic season.
2. Enabling slow performers reach the general curriculum through the use of reading with modern assistive technology to browse and read their coursework and other classroom supplies as represented in the new active communication process.
3. Availing learning facilities for the physically impaired students with a multi-sensory reading alternative that will help them develop their performance
4. Allowing learning and reading for the disabled students stay in their normal classroom with their peers, so they can continue learning. 

Recent research about Assistive reading technology has revealed (Heckler and Burns) to help low achieving learners increase reading speed and comprehension, as well as increase attention. 

Activity	Schedule	Participants
Grant proposal submission	May 2018	Studies coordinator
Expected grant notification	July 2018
Supplies obtaining	August, 2018	Management
Reporting of tutors and volunteers	August, 2018	Tutors
Tutors training session	August, 2018	Studies coordinator, tutors
Student induction forum	September, 2018	Coordinator ,students
Reading & Math initial testing	September,2018	students
Commencement of 1st eight- week phase	October 2018	Tutors, students
Testing of reading & math score progress	December 2018	Studies coordinator, examination department
Development of results report	December, 2018	Examinations department

Budget Outcome

Budget outcome

Personnel Services (PS)	Number of Hours/Week	Number of Weeks	Annual Cost	In-kind
Project coordinators (2 hours/3 days	6	33	$   5,940.00
4 Paid Teachers/4 hours/3 Days	48	33	$ 39,600.00
10 Volunteers/$15 per hour	120	33	$ 59,000.00	$ 59,000.00
OTPS Books, Supplies and Materials		33	$   2,475.00
Snacks		33	$   1,650.00
Overhead 10%		33	$   4,966.50
Total			$ 54,631.50	$ 59,000.00

Standardized reading tests as outlined in our education curriculum will take place during the first day of  the After School course and similarly at the end of the learning period to assess advancement in studying speed and math mastering for improved scores. Moreover, those students identified to be having issues will be examined to determine improvement in reading attention. (Monte and Libby) 

Yusuf Mohammed, the chief Special studies Coordinator, has a Bachelor’s Degree in Special Education from Lewiston University. Yusuf had lengthy interaction working with scholars with adverse reading difficulties and was tasked with implementing the pilot test course that turned out successful in 2006. He is adept with recent useful special needs technology, including the installation of technological learning equipment

Dennis Ross, Pathologist in language, was a Bachelor’s degree graduate from the University of Auburn Master’s degree from Boston University. Ross currently is serving scholars with severe learning disabilities. Ross will be responsible for coordinating participation with classroom tutors. 

Jessica Chichi, the Principal, holds a Master’s degree in Education from Lewiston College. Jessica chichi is entirely extending his hand for the Studies excel course and has taken charge of parental and community involvement. 

The program that is to be conducted under the Somali Bantu Association of Maine is a 501©3 non-profit organization aims at reducing the major issue of students dropping out of schools. According to the program, the students will be provided with after-school tutoring services three days a week. More than 120 students will be taught by teachers who will be paid as well as by teachers who will volunteer for the service. Each teacher will get the responsibility of 15 students for four hours. The expense would be about 600 to 800 dollars each month.

The major problem with the Somali-Bantu youth is that students are either frequently dropping out of schools or do not have any educational background at all. Dropping out of school has become a regular event in the community. Increase in the number of dropouts would lead to lower literacy rate. With more moderate literacy rate, job opportunities will be smaller, and these children will be forced to indulge in criminal activities. Therefore, the aim is to help educate the children to their full potential, and additional after-school help can prove beneficial.

The mission of the organization is to help the Somali-Bantu refugees is aspects of employment, housing, literacy, safety, and health. They want to empower the families and their children so that they can live a sustainable and healthy life. This program is an initiative taken to improve the education of the children and empower them; therefore, the mission of the organization and the plan is at par with each other, as this program might deem useful in enabling the refugee community.

Standardized Reading Tests

There might be some obstacles to this program. The first and the major problem would be the unwillingness of the children to attain education. Some children are dropping out because of their weakness in studies; however, some have been dropping out purposefully. The steps that need to be taken to overcome this issue would be to educate the community about the need for education and how they could be benefitted. Secondly, efforts need to be put in developing cultural belongingness and awareness among the children. Thirdly, most students have limited English proficiency, and it is essential to have teachers who can communicate with the children in their language. The children need to be motivated to go to school by incorporating feeding programs (Monchuk, 2013).

The program should take place three days a week. The program duration would be for a year after which the results would be analyzed, that is, the improvement of the children in the educational field, in their well-being and in adjusting to the cultural diversity will be observed after which, a further decision of going ahead with the program will be decided.

Promotion of the program is an essential aspect because; more people need to be aware of the current condition of the refugee community. Thereby that they can come forward and help in raising funds for the event Social media is a practical and economical way for promoting the development, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, all these famous sites can be used as essential tools for supporting the program. 

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