COMING SOON!Please check back in mid April for an Impact Study on how BPSOS-Delaware Valley's Youth Programs have impacted and developed Vietnamese Immigrant Youth :) ----------------------------- Outcomes for the Vietnamese Immigrant Youth Organization, presented by BPSOS-Delaware Valley: Asian Youth Empowerment Program:
Group Identity Development 2012 saw an influx of new Vietnamese immigrant students, some who have immigrated to the United States within the last 6 months from the start of the 2011-2012 school year. These students created an organizational structure and mission statement to empower and unite the Vietnamese immigrant student population in South Philadelphia High School. They named themselves the Vietnamese Immigrant Youth Organization(VIYO). The students gained a stronger sense of social consciousness and developed their leadership through co-facilitation of social justice workshops. Students also planned and coordinated VIYO retreats, such as the Fairmount Park Hiking Retreat.
Post-Secondary Education Support BPSOS provided academic and post-secondary education support by coordinating a site visit by an admissions officer from the Community College of Philadelphia. The Program Coordinator also conducted financial aid and college application workshops and assisted around 20 students as they approached graduation and transitioned into post-secondary education. The majority of these students enrolled into the Community College of Philadelphia(CCP) due to their limited English abilities and the comprehensive ESOL program at CCP. In addition to the college workshops, the Program Coordinator assisted students in the scheduling of college ESOL placement tests, rectified student application issues, and provided emotional support for college bound seniors.
Mentorship Program BPSOS collaborated with Temple University Asian Student Association(TUASA) to provide VIYO students with college-aged mentors. The Vietnamese immigrant students participated in several TUASA events such as their general body meetings at Temple University and their leadership retreat. This collaboration allowed high school and college students to interconnect with one another and learn from each other. VIYO and TUASA also planned and coordinated a joint fundraiser at Temple University.
Civic Engagement As part of VIYO’s expansion into other realms of civic engagement, we provided structural opportunities for Vietnamese immigrant students to partake in BPSOS and community events. VIYO students volunteered for the opening and closing ceremonies of the “Exit Saigon, Enter Little Saigon” exhibit, a traveling Smithsonian showcase documenting the plight and journey of the Vietnamese-American community in the United States since the Fall of Saigon in 1975. This exhibit allowed VIYO students to connect to the Vietnamese-American community by participating and absorbing the cultural and artistic components offered during the opening and closing ceremonies.
Project-Based Learning During the latter part of the year, the Vietnamese immigrant students worked with PSU and AAU on the implementation of a school-wide project entitled the "We Come From" Collage, a collective of various students’ poetic lines from the culture and identity-based“I Come From” poems. The students modified, distributed, and collected poems from classrooms within the school. The poem templates were translated from English into various languages including Chinese, Vietnamese, Nepalese, etc. These poems allowed students in the school to express their cultural values and identities through deep reflection and poetry. After collecting the poems, the students created a collage that is representative of the multi-culturalism and multi-lingualism present within the school.