This has been our last week of Camp Super Vacas at Su Casa. It has been a great four weeks of getting to know the kids, teaching them crafts, and getting to care for them. It has also been a joy to get to know their families as well when they pick up the kids and through events like the weekly Family Fun Night, which is actually very fun. I really appreciate Su Casa's approach to family ministry that services the needs of adults and children and hosts events to bring the family together.
I am not actually sure what my job will look like now that camp is finished, but one issue I know I will face pertains to this week's theme of education. By law, all children who are permanent residents are required to go to school, regardless of immigration status. This year, Shelby County Schools is requiring people to register for school online with no alternative. Most of the people we serve do not have home computers. We are trying to get the county to open a computer lab so that people can register for school, but no luck yet. In the meantime, we are trying to inform our families of the extensive paperwork required to register for school. For example, they have to scan in their most recent utility bill to prove their residence. This requires not just a standard computer, but also a scanner.
Most of our adults are not computer literate, but they are especially not computer literate in English. If they do have access to a computer, they will have trouble following directions and submitting all the necessary paperwork. The online registration is supposed to be in Spanish, but they have to submit paperwork to multiple sites. So I will get to translate as we help our families register for school. Oftentimes, the families are unaware of all of the documents they have to submit because the instructions are only provided in English. The kids show up to school, but the school considers them not registered, so the kids miss the first couple weeks of school while they get the paperwork straightened out.
We have looked into getting our families library cards, but have run into a series of complications there as well. In Memphis, you have to provide a social security number to get a library card, and they will put your picture on the card and it can be used as voter ID. There is a simpler version of the library card without a picture to be used just to check out books, but the librarians were unhelpful and unwilling to issue these cards to our families. The law requires these kids to go to school, but how can they be successful in school without access to a library or a computer? And without education, it becomes extremely difficult for these kids to make positive contributions to society.
As I've read through these blogs, it almost seems like all of them are running together, because they all seem to present unsolvable problems, which is so frustrating. It's so disheartening to hear about all of the seemingly insurmountable obstacles that these families that you serve at Su Casa are faced with, just in the proceedings of everyday life. It certainly seems like a double standard that it's lawfuylly required for children to go to school whether or not they are a US Citizen (and therefore have a SS number), but it requires tools that are not always available to those who are not US Citizens and therefore fit into a less wealthy demographic (and therefore do not have computers), and it seems that in order to gain access to a computer, you basically need a SS number. It is really cool, though, that you all at Su Casa are at least aware of these obstacles (as well as the others that you mentioned, including the translating situation), and are doing your best to help these families overcome them. I hope that the transition out of day camp goes well, too!!
ReplyDeleteI'm so glad that you enjoyed you time serving those kids in the camp. I'm sure you learned a lot from them and they probably taught you a lot as well.
ReplyDeleteI completely agree with Hannah's post. That's very disheartening to hear. It's good that you and Su Casa identified the problem now ya'll just have to figure out how to solve it.This goes back to our discussion about access.
Maybe this week since you aren't working in the camp, you and your supervisor can discuss possible solutions to this problem. Are there any community centers that have computers the families could use? Are there people who are willing to help the families turn in the right forms? Maybe you all could organize a day where families could come and register their kids and have volunteer there ready to help them. Also have ya'll contacted a supervisor at the library because I don't think the librarians can keep someone from getting the simpler library card. Maybe try a different library?
I hope you and Su Casa can construct a solution to this devastating problem.
I have gotten to hear a lot from you about Camp Super Vacas, but I did not realize that Su Casa made such an effort to reach whole families! It is very cool that you are not just working with individuals and that the educational and other challenges you are combating connect to overarching issues such as the fight to help disadvantaged children grow into successful members of society. I can’t imagine how hard it would be to catch up in school after missing the several entire weeks, and all because of paperwork! I think I would be especially angry if I was the parent in such a situation and had really tried to do everything right but was failed by the system. How good that you and your coworkers are doing the apparently very necessary work of bridging language and other types of barriers.
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