As Enroot celebrates Black History Month we are reflecting on the powerful legacies of Black leaders in many of the countries our students hail from. Born into slavery, Toussaint L'ouverture led the Haitian Revolution, which paved the way for Haiti’s independence and efforts to abolish slavery not only in Haiti but also across all French colonies. His success encouraged abolitionists in the US, six decades before the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863. In Ethiopia, Menelik II and later Haile Selassie successfully repelled colonization attempts by Italy, marking victories of enormous symbolic importance across the African continent and the world. In South Africa, Nelson Mandela’s heroic fight against apartheid became a model globally for combatting systemic racism and for how to begin the process of national healing.
Enroot students who identify as Black hail from many more countries than those mentioned here, and carry with them the power of this rich cultural heritage. We know that they too will write new chapters of Black History with their own contributions as leaders in this country.
Happy Black History Month to each of you and thank you for joining us in celebrating the contributions of Enroot students, past, present, and future!
Enroot is celebrating Black History Month by featuring Black leaders who have contributed incredible work and their voices to our society. Every day, a member of our team will spotlight a Black leader in our Cambridge Rindge & Latin School and Somerville High School sites and on social media. We are especially featuring young Black leaders, local Black leaders, and also Black immigrants making a difference in our communities so that our students can be exposed to the vast possibilities out there for them.
Students, mentors, and tutors will have a space to learn more about Black History Month, do fun activities like trivia or a scavenger hunt, and reflect on their identity, and how they navigate their race and ethnicity in America. In addition, the Enroot staff team will be celebrating this month with discussions, movie nights, visiting black-owned restaurants, and more!
Martin Luther King Day of Service
In partnership with Many Helping Hands 365, we were thrilled to join the community and have incredible participation from students and volunteers at the 2020 MLK Day of Service on January 20th. 14 students and 10 volunteers came together to make fleece blankets, scarves, valentine's day cards, sort food, toiletries and books benefiting homeless individuals, at-risk children, homebound elders, and veterans.
Updates from Cambridge Program
What's all this fun with balloons? Students enjoy a Wellness Seminar where for one exercise they were tasked with balancing and keeping afloat all of the priorities (balloons) in their lives. In life, there is always a lot going on! We teach students that it is important to balance, manage, and have fun throughout it all.
During Lunch and Learn at CRLS, students learned about conductivity and circuits through hands-on experiments holding hands to conduct power and energy. Students were introduced to the concept of conductivity by exploring everyday items that electricity can travel through. It turns out acorns are not inherently conductive, however, bananas are. Thus, when plugged into a circuit that is attached to a laptop with a keyboard app, students pressing bananas were able to play the piano!
Recently, students also had the wonderful opportunity of visiting Momenta Pharmaceuticals. Students got to experience a presentation with Q&A on who Momenta is and what they do allowing exposure to the different roles in a biotechnology company. Each student then chose two business units to learn more about. Students picked units like Cyber Security, Finance, Research, Environmental Health and Safety and more! These experiences provide students new learnings, exposure and a continued sense of possibility.
What's Happening in Somerville?
Leadership students had several seminars keeping them busy, including a trip to Brooklyn Boulders, STEM Career Panel, and a Financial Management Workshop.
We brought together a panel of six professionals who, in addition to being representative of a diverse set of STEM careers, were also representative of our students. They represented companies like Biogen, Year Up, Auto Desk, Institute for Human Centered Design, MIT, and Sensata Technology. The six panelists immigrated to the U.S. from El Salvador, Costa Rica, Ethiopia, India, and Vietnam. One panelist is an Enroot alum and board member and another an Enroot mentor. After a brief panel, students were very excited to interview each guest in rotating groups of 4-6 and ask questions about the objects that the speakers brought in such as sophisticated temperature monitors and 3D print models.
Student Voice: "One of the people that were on the panel talked about failure and how it doesn’t matter if you fail once or more times in your life as long as you overcome and try your best the next time. I think that was one of the factors that made students realize their true potential, and gave them a different perspective of life."
Michelle Meiser from the Cambridge Trust Company led a Financial Management Workshop in Somerville High School. During the workshop, students learned about the importance of budgeting and the distinction between ‘needs vs. wants’. Students were able to identify the things we absolutely need to live, and the things we want but can live without. The students learned the importance of making smart decisions when it comes to money, and that sometimes you don't have to have brand new electronics and apparel.
Post Secondary Updates
Jules Bannister, Assistant Director of Freshman Admissions at UMASS Amherst, provided a session on an application case study. During this session, mentors and students pretended to be Admissions Officers while reviewing (faux) student applications and decided whether to accept, reject, or waitlist the applicant. Students also participated in writing workshops, focused on scholarships, and financial aid packages by continuing to work with their uAspire representatives. We are also thrilled to see students completing two-year vocational programs in areas such as Cosmetology and Auto Mechanics leading them to graduate with a license.
1st College Success Winter Dinner!
We welcomed back first and second-year college success students to reconnect, laugh, reflect, and share tips on how to succeed in college. It was a blast celebrating students at our first College Success Winter Dinner. The holidays are full of nostalgia, family, and laughter. Many of our students build deep and meaningful connections with other immigrants, with mentors, and with the dedicated Enroot team. This spirit of community is especially palpable during gatherings like this where both our Cambridge and Somerville sites come together to eat, dance and create new traditions as we celebrate the hard work of the first half of the year.
“Enroot is like family” and “Enroot is like a second home” are just a few of the ways students have reflected on the connections they’ve made.
Introducing...
Please give a warm welcome to our new Development Manager, Lima James. Read more about herhere.
SAVE THE DATE!
Join us to Celebrate Immigrant Leaders
Join us on April 6th, 2020 to celebrate the contributions of first and second-generation immigrant leaders in the greater Boston community! We will have a panel of speakers that represent different countries of origin, races, ethnicities, and professional backgrounds, and begin a dialogue around what it means to be an immigrant. The event will take place at Google Cambridge from 6:00-8:30 pm, with the program featuring a performance by U-Meleni Mhlaba-Adebo. Find the event details here.
