My Summer at FORA Chicago

By Madison Bryant

Forging Opportunities for Refugees in America (FORA) provides illiterate refugee children and their parents with the tools to actively engage in their new city of Chicago. This past summer, with support of a Center for Immigration Policy & Research (CIPR) student grant, I was a Restorative Justice Intern for the organization’s High Impact Tutoring program. This program provides formerly pre-literate refugee children — meaning students with only a few, if any, English-language skills and without English literacy or writing skills — with foundational instruction in reading and math so that they can catch up on schoolwork and thrive in the classroom and beyond.  

The students I worked with this summer were recently arrived Rohingya Muslim refugees and Afghan girls who were denied access to education and seriously traumatized from genocide or war. One I worked with almost every day was an 11-year-old girl named Zarina. She was the oldest of four siblings, bright, witty, observant, and mature beyond her years. She went to FORA throughout the summer, staying each day from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. in order to catch up to her peers in school. We developed a close bond; when I returned to FORA after taking a week off for a procedure, she gifted me a friendship bracelet with our initials. 

The students created a beautiful, supportive community within the walls of the building. Though they were scattered across the city and went to different schools, they knew they’d see their friends at FORA. The refugee families that find sanctuary in Chicago have created their community in the northern part of the city. They live in the same buildings, share two-family homes, and access the same resources with hope of providing more opportunities for their children. Like the students, I knew when I walked into FORA I’d be among friends. Though I was there to engage with and help young minds, FORA also gave me a community of peers with similar values and goals to my own.  

A typical day at FORA started with us interns arriving at 9 a.m. The students would get there starting at 9:15. While the younger students were excited to be there and often immediately ran to their tutors, the older ones were more leisurely about getting started. FORA was located at a storefront in the Little India neighborhood of Chicago, though it will move into a bigger building this winter to accommodate more students. People who walked past the storefront would compliment us on the joy they saw emanating from the students and tutors.  

The day was split up into two 2-hour blocks with a lunch break in between. Each hour was broken into a curriculum plan. There was an app for every subject we covered with the students: literacy, vocabulary/spelling, math, and independent reading. While the students had access to tablets at FORA, it was not always the case at home. Luckily, the students spent ample time at FORA after school to complete their digital work. If an app wasn’t working or became too easy for the student, it was up to the tutor to accommodate them with something else to do. The most difficult task was reading. Most of the students didn’t have any interest in reading out loud to their tutor, especially in an unfamiliar language with new phonetic rules and vocabulary. It was Zarina’s least favorite part of the day. All the books she read were contemporary fiction novels about the real struggles of marginalized communities. One of those books was Flying Over Water by Shannon Hitchcock, which talks about a young refugee’s experiences adjusting to a new country and facing Islamphobia. I tried for most of the summer to nourish her love of reading by showing her books I loved when I was her age, though I suspect she didn’t like the books she was being assigned. We started trying out new genres before she found her favorite: horror.  

Over the summer, the students also got to participate in specialized programs. Some of the students did Model UN and Debate, which focused more on building their advocacy and confidence than on competition and public speaking. Our special Friday project — watching butterflies hatch from their chrysalises — was a big hit with the students. Though FORA students were between elementary school and high school age, a 21-year-old woman would come a few times a month to see if anyone was available to tutor her. She moved to the United States four years ago after her all-girls school in Afghanistan was bombed. She hoped to get her GED and pursue a career that would allow her to send money to her family still in Afghanistan. Since coming to FORA, she has learned how to communicate in English and applied to educational opportunities for refugees. One of the tasks I had the privilege of helping her with was proofread her application for a nursing bachelor’s degree in a program where she would attend tuition-free.  

It was a privilege to spend my summer with these students and the incredible staff at FORA. I was honored to share moments with them, both the good and bad. It was sentimental to end the summer with them and say goodbye to them before we both went back to school. Zarina and her sister said they were looking forward to going back to school in the fall. Their youngest sibling, a 3-year-old boy, is excited to one day study at FORA like his big sisters. These students have endured more in their short lives than most people endure in a lifetime. My summer at FORA has inspired me to pursue a career in advocacy; I look forward to other opportunities my passion will lead me to.  

If you’d like to learn more about FORA and support their incredible mission, please visit refugeefora.org or follow them on Instagram (@refugeefora). To anyone from FORA reading this: Thank you so much for the most memorable and wonderful summer!  

Madison Bryant is a third-year undergraduate student at the University of Denver. She is pursuing a bachelor’s degree in international studies, a secondary major in psychology and minors in leadership studies and socio-legal studies. She is originally from Chicago, Illinois, and grew up participating in many community service activities with her family. She plans on pursuing a career in international law as a prosecutor of war crimes and genocide. After graduating from DU, she hopes to obtain a master’s degree in international studies and a JD.