Cultural Companion

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❖ Hours per week needed: 2-3 hours per week, for a minimum of three months
❖ Schedule: Flexible
❖ Requirements: Previous experience communicating with (and preferably tutoring or mentoring) people with limited English; flexibility, creativity, and patience; cultural humility and curiosity to learn and share culture with your companion; empathy and sensitivity with regard to difficulties immigrant companions may be facing, with an orientation towards supporting their resilience.
❖ Duties: The volunteer is paired with an immigrant adult of the same gender expression in a one-on-one match for the purpose of English practice and to be "cultural companions" focused on sharing culture, exploring the community, and building a friendship. Volunteers will most importantly serve as friends but also as English learning partners. Volunteers will likely be paired with an immigrant companion who speaks very little English and will need to build rapport through doing activities together, while engaging in experiential learning. If you prefer to be matched with someone with an intermediate or higher level of English, consider applying for the Adult English Language Tutor position, to help clients develop skills they need to improve their employability.
❖ Meeting mode: We’re looking for volunteers who are willing to meet in person, masked, and at a distance, outdoors or in large indoor community spaces (like libraries). We'll likely do the introductory sessions outside somewhere near the immigrant companion's home, and then you and the client would need to be prepared to arrange to meet outdoors or in larger indoor public spaces where you can be socially distant.

For now, we're not asking volunteers to meet in clients' homes until we receive more guidance from the state.

❖ Support: IRIS will provide an extensive list of suggested activities and experiential learning opportunities, but volunteers will still be responsible for planning sessions with their partners based on both members’ interests and learning goals.