My name is Fev and my CSGC grant is going towards running a program of English classes for Ukranian refugee children in Gloucestershire, England.
Since the Russian Invasion of Ukraine on February 24th, 2022 countless Ukrainian families, including children have been forced to flee their homeland. They have immigrated to countries all over the world including the United Kingdom, which has welcomed 161,400 Ukrainian refugees. Particularly vulnerable to the transition are children, who not only have had to leave their homelands behind but also have been thrown into a new education system with limited support. Over 500 households welcomed more than 1000 Ukrainians in Gloucestershire, England and schools were preparing to welcome over 1,000 schoolchildren in September 2022. There is insufficient ESL support for children in particular and with Ukranian families continuing to arrive throughout this summer I am using my grant to address this issue. I have already started my CSGC project in which I am running two to two and a half hour ESL classes every Saturday over two months, outside of that I try to provide support in any way that I can, for example, through meeting with some children one on one and working on specific skills outside of lesson time. At the moment I have six children signed up who come to my sessions. I am using the grant money I received to buy a book for every child in the program, stationery and other supplies necessary for my lessons, school supplies for the children to use in the upcoming school year, snacks during lessons, study guides for national exams in the new school year, and other necessary resources.
I am honored and privileged to learn about the stories of the families I am working with and to be able to help them in any way that I can. I am also very grateful for the support of teachers within my community in helping my lesson plan and identify appropriate and fun topics and ideas to teach, to my local library for letting me use their space, and of course to the CSGC and Earle Mendillo for making this possible. I feel very fortunate to have the opportunity to run this program and I am really looking forward to sharing the outcomes and progress of it with you in August.
-Fev’24