Boston Refugee Youth Enrichment (BRYE) Extension
PBHA’s Boston Refugee Young Enrichment (BRYE) Extension is both a mentoring program and an academic enrichment program for recent immigrant and refugee youth living in Dorchester, the curriculum of which focuses on building English skills and engaging students in learning concepts not typically explored in school.
Staff Contact Info:
Kerry McGowan
kerry@pbha.org
Officer Contact Info:
For Fall 2023, BRYE Extension will be recruiting volunteers to help run several classrooms of elementary school students (1st - 5th grade) from Dorchester. Each volunteer will have a co-teacher and teach a small classroom, and every teacher pair develops their own exciting curriculum for their group of students. We will provide program students with materials (which the volunteers will decide) to make activities as engaging and hands-on as possible. In addition to these class times, BRYE volunteers will undergo training before teaching and have some meetings throughout the semester.
BRYE Extension builds English skills, engages students in learning concepts not explored in school, and provides a safe, validating, and intellectually stimulating space for students.Students at BRYE Extension are places into classrooms based on age level and familiarity with the English language. There are three class levels, with the youngest class ranging in age from 6 to 8, a middle class 8 to 10, and a third class ranging ages 10 to 12.The program runs from 4:00 to 5:30 on Friday afternoons on site in Dorchester.
History of BRYE Extension
BRYE Extension, founded in 2001, was first created in order to close the educational gap between new immigrant children and their peers through an educational enrichment program. The program sets itself apart from other after-school programs by strengthening students’ ESL skills and supplementing classroom instruction through fun and innovative volunteer-designed curriculum in a small classroom environment. The program fills a much-needed void in Dorchester, where low-income residents in Boston's most diverse neighborhood often lack access to affordable after-school programs.