Our plan
Living in International House at the University of Melbourne is a very community-based lifestyle. You live together, eat together, study together and socialize together. This sounds great, however you quickly realise that even if you flew from the other side of the world to be here, you're not living in Melbourne, Australia, you're living at International House. Melbourne features a very diverse and rich culture and we decided to play to our strengths and get involved in a way that would benefit our city. We decided to support local High Schools and their students by providing free tutoring in our study-based environment in whatever subject areas the students required. We would offer this tutoring to a wide variety of students, most of whom had come from a migrant background.
What we did
Thanks to contacts between International House Melbourne and International House New York we heard about the 'Davis Projects for Peace'. We were fortunate enough to be selected for one of their grants and we were underway. Getting in touch with a local Youth Services group we quickly found interested students and started the program. Calling the initiative 'Project Fraternitas' (after our Houses motto) we first invited the students to attend a free dinner in House to meet and greet their future tutors. Since then we have been running the tutoring sessions out of our House tutorial rooms every Monday and Tuesday afternoon for two hours each day. Students arrive, tell us which subjects they need help in - and our volunteer tutors - made up entirely of residents of the House, give them the one on one help they need.
Our results
Thanks to the Project the students are receiving free weekly tutoring from University students in an environment designed specifically for the purpose of study and learning. While some aspects of the program which we hoped to include (such as a mid-year camp) may not have played out as planned, the tutoring has shown some excellent results. The students have built a relationship with their tutors and look forward to returning each week, leading to a marked improvement in their grades. More unexpectedly however the program has really impacted on the tutors as well. Learning a lot not only about the finer points of their preferred specialties we have all connected with these kids and learn an equal amount from them in turn. We have built strong new ties with our community and hope to continue the program into the future and open it up to more schools and more students. A huge thanks to all involved.
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