New Arrivals Institute

Description

The Refugee New Arrival School was developed in the late 1990’s to meet the needs of refugees living in Guilford County . Although there were many ESOL programs in Greensboro , employees at Lutheran Family Services and GTCC determined that there was a large segment of the refugee population unable to access the available ESOL programs. One major barrier for refugee families was that parents (especially mothers) could not attend classes due to their childcare responsibilities. The New Arrival School (NAS) was developed through a partnership with GTCC, Grace Community Church and the NC State Refugee Assistance Program (RAP) contract as a place where families could come together to learn English and participate in employment readiness and cultural orientation programs. The NAS operates five days a week for 3.25 hours per day. There are currently 5 adult classes and 2 early childhood transitional classes. In addition to our adult classes we also have employment readiness classes and cultural orientation seminars every week. GTCC provides the adult ESOL instructors, the church houses the program and LFS administrates the program including day to day operations, development and implementation of the cultural orientation and employment classes, enrollment of adult students and operation of the early childhood transitional classes.