Description
Horn of Africa Services (HOAS) is a multi-lingual, multi-cultural nonprofit offering support and advocacy services in response to health, employment, housing educational and social needs for East African refugees and immigrants from Djibouti, Ethiopia, Somalia, Eritrea and Sudan living in the greater Seattle area.
HOAS has been recognized throughout the Puget Sound as a leading social services provider to East Africans. HOAS has a multi-national board and staff composed mostly of East Africans who have experienced the hardships that our clients have been exposed to.
Founded in 1992 by a group of volunteers, HOAS continues to provide assistance to East African immigrants and refugees, regardless of their religious, ethnic or political affiliations. HOAS helps to empower clients to navigate more efficiently through their lives by creating an atmosphere of supportive interaction, learning and by providing information and guidance on accessing social and related services. HOAS strives to ensure our East African clients that their relocation to the Seattle area becomes trouble-free.
Basic Computer Training: technology-based educational resource center located in southeast Seattle to provide East African refugees and immigrants with a safe, culturally sensitive environment where they can access a computer lab and learn about computers with the assistance of multi-lingual staff and volunteers.
After School Program - Tutoring: our After School Program serves East African refugee and immigrant youth from grades 3-12 and provides homework help, and math instruction in a supportive and fun environment. We support children in their school work, improving their grades in school and in preparing for WASL examinations. we offer homework help and math education to East African refugee and immigrant youth at two Seattle Housing Authority low-income housing sites. Students are matched with a tutor for homework help and math focused tutoring to improve school performance and WASL test scores.
Parent Advocates and Cultural Orientation: through experience and needs based research, we developed the Parent Advocate program to develop parent knowledge of the schools, and provide substantive information parents need in order to understand the US school system and support their children in succeeding academically.
We are now expanding this program, beyond training parent advocates, to include a parents forum to engage more parents on a regular basis. The second half of the program is the cultural awareness trainings for educators working with East African youth. With this we will inform and empower people on both sides of the student - the educators and the families.
Information Referral and Case Management: assist East African refugees to access social services through multi-lingual and culturally appropriate information, advocacy and referrals to local resources. The ultimate goal is to provide services and learning opportunities to assist individuals to become more self-reliant and more toward self-sufficiency.
