I made several stops at the Pines after work today. My first stop was with Champa Rai. I learned that she had not returned the call to Melanie Smith her Workforce Counselor at 7th Stt and Mountain View back. I encouraged her that is her #1 task.

Next I went to the Das home and discussed Summer School for the boys with Dal and Kalpana. They thought that they may have received a paper in Suman's school bag but they lost it so the boys will not be going to summer school at Simpson. We discussed the 100 reasons why it was important. I told them I would go to Simpson on Wednesday after work and pick up multiple copies and we will discuss ELL Summer School during Sunday's class at the NNEX. I have a parallel pursuit with the AZELLA Division at the Arizona Department of Education about the under-served students at Simpson. Simpson will be monitored and investigated.

And last I went to the Basnet home. This was my first time in their home. If you recall the Basnets were one of the first families to arrive in Phx. Mr. Basnet has worked at Ranch Market for five months and actually had Sunday off from work so he was at Church for the first time on Sunday morning. They are the lucky parents of 4 wonderful teenage girls. Someone drove Mr. Basnet to Tucson today to attend the funeral of a grandfather (??). I went there to prep Chandrika Basnet and Dahn & Nandu Battarrai for their appoint with the Phoenix Workforce Connection Program for 16-24 year olds. At this point in time we have 3/32 students selected for interviews. They actually have a list of about 6 items to bring to the interview so we needed to discuss and make several phone calls about what document they should us for the birth certificate. They will use the I-94 card and the Permission to work in USA card. My biggest challenge was getting them to make the necessary phone calls. They have a great deal of fear and excitement about this new experience. Phx Summer Youth Employment is still making calls so let's continue to pray that a few more Bhutenese students have this opportunity..

I learned a lot about teaching our friends to fish this afternoon. Teaching them how to fish takes a long time. I had assumed that Champa would make the return call- she lost the phone number and was embarrassed to ask me for it. One can assume that all Bhutenese parents would be signing their children up for summer school - I was wrong. I assumed that the lucky teens who were contacted by Phx Summer Youth Employment had followed the directions and returned calls - they need a lot of encouragement to make those call. I only wish that we could have a mentor for each family.
Helen