 BRYE Summer has provided academic and emotional support to refugee children and their families since 1987. This summer we will serve about 90 Vietnamese, Haitian, Afghan, and Cape Verdean youth ages six to 14 in Dorchester. Each college-age senior counselor (SC), with the assistance of a high school-age Junior Counselor (JC) will lead a class of 10 children. BRYE Summer prioritizes ESL instruction, but SCs design their own curriculum and can teach any subject during each day's three hours of classroom time. SCs also take their classes on afternoon field trips in the Greater Boston area and a weekend camping trip. SCs work with refugee students and families of amazing strength. Many alumni have developed long-term relationships with the families and have been able to assist in alleviating many of the challenges facing recent immigrant families. Issues concerning BRYE youth are violence in the neighborhood and racial tensions between the diverse ethnic groups in Boston.
Started in 1964, the Cambridge Youth Enrichment Program, or CYEP, is the largest of the SUP camps, and the only one serving the low-income population of Cambridge. It consists of three different sites each centered around a different housing development in Cambridge. CYEP employs six directors, 15 senior counselors, and 15 teen junior counselors each summer. Having such a large staff creates a truly amazing team and phenomenal community. Our children come from low-income families across Cambridge. CYEP is also one of the most diverse SUP camps, having families of African-American, Haitian, Latino, Portuguese, Tibetan, and Indian descent, to name just a few. Cambridge is often overlooked because so much attention is focused on Boston schools, as well as on the universities and biotechnical institutions that dominate much of the landscape. However, almost all of the children we serve receive free school meals and qualify for subsidized and/or public housing. The same issues that plague low-income families and children in Boston also affect our Cambridge constituency, and parents are constantly thanking us for providing them a low-cost, quality summer experience for their children that is safe, fun, and enriching. Many of our parents are concerned about the spread of the biotech industry and the shockingly low scores of low-income Cambridge youth on the MCAS.
CHAD seeks to enrich and improve the quality of life for underprivileged youth in Boston’s Chinatown community. It is committed to the academic, social, and personal development of youth between the ages of six and 13. CHAD seeks not only to reinforce and strengthen academic skills acquired during the school year but also to promote personal growth among its campers by creating opportunities for developing fundamental social skills, healthy self-identities, high self-esteem, cross-cultural awareness, and social consciousness. In its 21st year of operation, CHAD continues to play a pivotal role in the community and maintains a unique niche in its ability to bring in resources otherwise unavailable to Chinatown’s youth. As one of the most impoverished communities in the Greater Boston area, Chinatown bears an average poverty rate of 28 percent. This is 10 percentage points higher than the average poverty rate across the United States. Whereas the median income in Boston is roughly $12,000, the median income in Chinatown is only $9,000. The majority of Chinatown households live in government-subsidized apartments. Most parents work multiple jobs, leaving their children to care for themselves or with elderly grandparents who do not speak English and who have not assimilated into American society. Moreover, Chinatown is also the most densely populated neighborhood in Boston. There are an estimated nine acres of parking lots within Chinatown and little open space for youth and outdoor recreation. The lone public green space in the immediate vicinity is a .5-acre plot.
Franklin serves 60 children and their families from the Franklin Field and Franklin Hill housing developments in Dorchester. The program aims to provide year-round academic support in conjunction with the Franklin After-School Education (FASE) and Franklin Teen programs; help overcome gang violence and other challenging conditions of the inner city by bringing the children together in a safe, enriching, and fun environment; and foster relationships between the children and counselors of diverse backgrounds where learning is reciprocal. The inter-generational camp brings together fun-loving children ages six to 13, ambitious local teenagers as junior counselors, passionate college-age senior counselors, an advisory board made up of parents and family members, and the local elderly community. The curriculum incorporates math, science, reading, and writing in a dynamic way that stimulates the campers' interest in learning and is complemented by daily exciting and educational field trips throughout the Boston area and beyond, as well as collaborations with other community groups. The major challenge facing the community in the upcoming years is the renovation of the Franklin Hill housing development. With Franklin Hill being demolished in preparation for new housing, the residents of the development are moving out to places all over Boston and even to other cities around the country. Franklin directors must deal with the repercussions of this government policy that forces residents of housing developments to leave their homes with no concrete plan for their return. Camper recruitment is a challenge as many of the families who have been part of the program have now relocated, their whereabouts unknown. By working with community leaders, the Franklin directors will play a large part in raising concerns to the City of Boston. The Franklin directors are perfectly suited for this because in many ways they are one of the only links that these families will still have with the Franklin community. Coming up with an action plan to deal with these issues will be an important part of the directors' role during the summer.
Keylatch provides under-served children from Boston's South End with a high-quality, enriching summer camp experience. Community leaders, families, and Keylatch staff engage campers in activities that allow them to explore new opportunities, deepen cultural and community pride, and foster a love of learning. Racial tensions and inter-neighborhood violence abound, and most of the youth violence that occurs in Boston takes place in and around the South End. The community is facing many problems due to gentrification and the loss of public housing space, as low-income housing is encroached upon by market-rate buyers and more and more of the neighborhood is built up by developers of high-end real estate. Insufficient schools and bilingual education are a major problem for the largely Latino (primarily Puerto Rican) residents, and Spanish is the first language of many of the children in the camp.
MHSP is a seven-week, affordable, academic camp which serves families from Roxbury's Mission Main and Alice Taylor Housing Developments, both predominantly African American and Latino communities. Founded at the request of community members, the camp seeks to provide a safe space for the 80 campers, ages six to 13, for the price of $100 for the entire summer. MHSP provides crucial services for families who struggle to find affordable, innovative childcare. Many campers have siblings in the program and return year after year, and MHSP has become a fixture in the community. MHSP also hires 12 teens from the community to work as junior counselors. The job is often the first for these youths, and they are prepared with counselor and leadership trainings. The junior counselors provide an institutional memory and a deep tie to the community, which are both invaluable. MHSP also focuses on violence prevention by having campers interact with youth from the South End's Villa Victoria housing developments, a historically rival neighborhood. Giving the youth a chance to forge these friendships, which would otherwise be highly unlikely, will hopefully, in turn, prevent future acts of violence among them.
NAYEP is a seven-week summer program for Native American children ages six to 13. Unlike most summer committees, we are not geographically centered. NAYEP serves children of all tribal ancestries from all across the Boston area. Our mornings are focused on curriculum, our afternoons are usually reserved for field trips and constructive recreation (such as swimming lessons). We spend a great deal of time on Native culture, history, myth and identity, as well as health and environmental issues, multiculturalism, and developing creativity. Dealing with issues of "native identity" is among the most challenging tasks NAYEP faces. Particularly in Boston, many natives are far removed from their tribal ancestry, so "native identity" is not fully synonymous with tribal identity. This is directly reflected in our campers' own conception of "native identity." Some our campers have a well-defined sense of tribal identity but many of them do not strongly associate with their tribal ancestry. This makes it very unclear what role tribal identity should play in "native identity." The diverse tribal backgrounds of our campers further limit the extent to which elements of tribal ancestry can be explored in an in-depth fashion. Because of all this, it is difficult to present a lesson plan or programming event to classroom that enriches each classroom member's sense of their own "native identity."
Created in 1986 in response to the needs of the growing immigrant refugee population in the Greater Boston area, RYSE today serves more than 100 students from various Greater Boston communities. The mission of RYSE is to create a small yet intimate environment to provide affordable ESL instruction to high-school refugee and immigrant students. As a part of this instruction, we offer an introduction to American culture and a chance to shape the experience of our students. As a seven-week intensive summer program that runs four nights a week (Monday through Thursday), three hours each night (4:30-7:30), RYSE provides ESL instruction in the context of a cultural exchange. We hope to provide a concrete and cultural understanding of the language by utilizing both formal and hands-on teaching methods, and incorporating community service projects and educational field trips in the curriculum. By working closely with students, parents, community members and organizations, RYSE strives to facilitate the cultural integration of refugee youths into American society, help them realize their tremendous potential and provide them with the necessary tools and skills to succeed in their academic and personal growth. Among the issues that concern our students are: the immigration process, achievement on MCAS scores, adequate resources to bilingual education. RYSE continues to support the educational development of its students, not only through classroom instruction, but also through enriching field trips and our annual College and Career Fair. Additionally, during term-time, many of the RYSE students are enrolled in the Refugee Youth Term-Time Enrichment (RYTE) program, which is a sister program of RYSE that helps to maintain year-round cohesive support to the students.
RYI is designed to give academic enrichment and personal support to campers ages six through 13 from the Roxbury community. The goal is not only to promote academic achievement, but also to cultivate excitement about learning, to expose Roxbury children to a world not yet discovered by them, to foster an understanding of how integral they are to the world, and to give the children concrete tolls that they may use later in life to participate and better this world in its greater sense.
SBOS provides a summer day camp for at-risk children whose mothers are working to further their education through the Julie’s Family Learning Program in South Boston. Our 44 campers, ages six to 13, come primarily from the Old Colony and West Broadway public housing developments in South Boston. SBOS encompasses education, diversity, and social responsibility through hands-on activities and field trips. Campers explore their own community as well as the larger city around them in order to understand their own ethnic heritage and to appreciate the diversity of Boston. Our overnight camping trip gives campers a chance to work together as a team, discover nature, and learn basic environmental awareness.
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