MEET OUR STUDENTS

These two sisters are bundles of joy and strong, powerful girls who aren ’t afraid to speak their minds. The immediate impression they make on adults is that they must come from an amazingly supportive family, which is, indeed, true. The joy and confidence of the children is a consequence of the love continually poured into their lives by family and friends.

When the older of the two sisters started coming to FORA, her younger sister was too young to join. (We are legally not allowed to take preschoolers or else we would be considered a day care center). Every day for many months, the younger sister stood outside to pick up her big sister, eagerly awaiting the day she could start coming to FORA. And now, a big-girl kindergartner, she can and does! She loves working with her tutors, reading the epiphanic early-reader masterpiece, Pete the Cat, and working on the online, award-winning, Dreambox learning program. She also loves participating in “ old-school” sharing at circle time. Who knew that circle time would be such a big hit? But these children, whose families have been silenced for so long, simply love getting up and individually describing their favorite superheroes, movies and ice cream flavors. Both sisters are going to be amazing public speakers. They are bravely articulate, focused on facts but with a flair for the dramatic.

WORDS FROM STAFF

“History is full of a lot of horrible things, and I can't, in retrospect, do anything about that. There were people during the Holocaust who needed help and they didn't get help they needed, and this is true of every atrocity through history. And I think that's one of the things that really struck me when I first found out about FORA -- that there is an ongoing atrocity, a genocide, and I have an opportunity to do something about it. And I don't see how I could turn that down. The number of refugees in the world and the hardships they endure -- I don't have to sit on the sideline and do nothing. I can actually do something here, and so I wake up every morning eager to get to work. And I think it's the best and most defining thing about FORA -- we're standing right here in the middle of history and we're doing, each of us, what we can do, what little contribution we can make.