Alumni mentors help low-income Seattleites

The sound of a busy intersection outside Julie’s Seattle apartment building leaves no time for any peace and quiet, but is certainly better than the homeless conditions she lived in with her daughter prior to receiving housing.

Julie is one of the many individuals who benefited last year from Western Washington University’s continuing partnership with the Low Income Housing Institute in Seattle, which provides one-on-one mentoring to homeless and low-income adults, most being refugees from African countries. The project is a $30,000 President’s Initiative granted by Western’s President Bruce Shepard.

The program, which began last fall, allows Western’s Woodring College of Education students and alumni to act as mentors to the LIHI residents and to help them gain employment skills, making them more marketable to employers.

Mentors assist in teaching LIHI residents digital-literacy skills; for some residents this is their first time using a computer, and by learning how to email they can send messages home to their families overseas. One-on-one mentoring is provided to LIHI residents for a three-month duration, assisting the residents in trying to reach their specific goals they set for themselves. Mentors are paid a $500 stipend for the training period, but they volunteer their time when tutoring residents.

A new addition to the project this year are its community-college mentors from the Seattle area. They are handling all of the mentoring this year instead of Western students because there is more of an emphasis on community-based education. Some of the program’s community college students have been at risk of homelessness, and half of them are immigrants to the United States. Another addition is mentors will be developing a participatory action research project along with the residents. This plan will help residents with their next steps in life after the mentoring project has completed.

“Community-based education is unique because it uses the gifts and talents of folks in the community to empower their neighbors,” project marketing intern Alyssa Kuchenreuther said.

Along with Kuchenreuther, Western alumni involved in developing the program include Program Director Sondra Cuban and Assistant Coordinators Nicole Harris and Marc Ravaris.

The LIHI orientation and training for mentors began on Friday, Feb. 28 and tutoring has begun this month.

For more information about Western’s LIHI Program, contact Cuban at Sondra.cuban@wwu.edu or call 360-650-2977.