We need:
Harvesters:
Help feed families and not landfills by join us for a harvest.
Distributors:
Do you want to meet wonderful people and organizations in Tucson? Redistribute locally grown fruits and vegetables.
Donations Coordinator:
Help us find donations for Iskashitaa program participants.
To find out more about these and other volunteer opportunities, contact Lizbeth, our Volunteer Coordinator.
We are also looking for sewing teachers, sewing class aides, interpreters (must speak Nepali, Kiswahili, or French), and other volunteers!
Contact Emily to learn more!
Now it's even easier to contribute! Just click here!
All donations are tax deductatble.
For more information, contact Natalie.
Thank you for your continued support!
Connect our friends to yet another cost saving resource.
If you want FREE fashionable clothes for men, women, and children try Saint Vincent de Paul Thrift Store's "VOUCHER ROOM". You will find a large, clean room with big dressing rooms and friendly volunteers. You are allowed to take 3 outfits- meaning 3 tops, 3 bottoms and 1 pair of shoes per week (that means 12 new outfits a month!). You can take 4 outfits a week for children, and 6 outfits for infants. They have tons of baby clothes. Whomever the clothes are for must be physically present, so bring the kids you want to outfit. We visited with Shukurani and his family. Even Bahati, a fashionable teenager, was pleased and the younger children got to dig happily in a large box full of free stuffed animals. And to get all this you simply have to write your name on a little receipt, filled out by the clerk, and sign it. Hours and location: Monday-Saturday 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., 18th street and South 6th Avenue. Happy shopping!
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| Sue Troutman |
Sue Troutman came to us from St Francis in the Foothills. The best way to describe her is as a Jackie-of-all-trades with a compassionate heart that keeps on giving. The first gift she shared with Iskashitaa was her skillful photography, which we gratefully utilize on our website, on Facebook, and in our newsletter (many of the photos in this newsletter were taken by Sue). Her photographs of baskets, yarn, and homemade clothing help refugees sell their wares. Her camera skills are only the beginning; she also harvests and redistributes fresh fruits and veggies to apartment complexes. She mentors, she lends her compassionate ear, and she practices English with her friends and acquaintances as they learn to navigate the city. She connects people to Iskashitaa resources and skills. She helps us ease our overflowing storage units (organizing helpers wanted). Sometimes it's Sue's simplest acts that make a difference when our staff needs a helping hand after an exhausting day of work at Iskashitaa. She continues to share in refugee lives by taking time to share a cup of tea; she is committed. She finds hope in hopelessness. She finds joy in helping others and being of service. She has offered her caring, her time, her contributions, and yet comes away profoundly changed with a better outlook on life. Thank you Sue!
Find out how volunteering gives back to you!
I am really happy about the materials that we have this semester, especially the various whiteboards. I think this will make instruction much more streamlined and preparation less time consuming for us. I also think this could make the lessons more effective. I feel like I will be focusing on whether the lesson will work for the students, and not on how to make the materials, or if I can make materials at all. Because many of the students are older, they have a hard time seeing. In the past, if I wrote something that everyone needed to see, it would be on a piece of paper. This was very difficult for many of our students to see, and made it hard to proceed with the lesson. The opportunity to write parts of the lesson on a larger surface might make it easier for our students to understand and participate in what is going on in the lesson.
We are always looking for donations for our classes including white boards, white board markers, pencils, notebooks, reading materials, crayons and gently used books. Please contact Kathy Zaleski if you have any materials.
Since the beginning of January, Iskashitaa has been pleased to offer swimming lessons for refugees of all ages and abilities. The lessons, held every Saturday morning at the Northwest YMCA pool, focus on teaching safe swimming practices and helping students become more comfortable in the water. Beth McMahon, the program director, has played a critical role in the overwhelming success of the lessons. "The classes have been amazing! The students, teachers, and volunteers are all having a wonderful time and no one wants to get out when class is over. I have found it fascinating how quickly fear can become excitement and enthusiasm."
We are trying to get as many tangerines, tangelos, oranges, and kumquats as we can before they phase out.
After that we will be harvesting predominantly grapefruit as it stays good on the tree much longer than other citrus as it's protected by its thick rind. Extra-thick skinned grapefruit is a sign of an environmental response. It can be brought on by cold weather (i.e. last year's freeze), high nitrogen relative to phosphorus and potassium, or if it is an overly prolific tree it will commonly produce great fruit with a thick rind. Anyhow, keep your eyes out for citrus trees and let us know when you find one!
Recently we made a batch of Sonoran Marmalade from our locally-harvested oranges and kumquats. The recipe has just the right amount of spice to earn its Sonoran identity, and is amazing on toast, baked chicken, and especially pork tenderloin! To create the same finished product in a small batch you will need:
8 oranges
2 handfuls kumquats
2 cups sugar
Pectin (follow packet instructions, I would use 1.5x required amount)
Canning equipment
1. Zest one orange.
2. Peel all oranges, and slice. Add to medium sized pot.
3. Slice kumquats, add to pot.
4. Cover fruit with water and bring to boil.
5. Stir in sugar and pectin.
6. Reduce for 1 hour.
Water bath for 20 minutes in sterilized jars using proper canning methods.
For more about canning and preserving, come cook with us the second Thursday and last Friday of each month! To inquire contact Mike at harvesting@iskashitaa.org.
Last month, Natalie Brown received the Church Women United in Arizona 2012 Human Rights Award.
Natalie Brown's human rights work extends into many arenas. Serving as the Resource Coordinator, Natalie's current position with Iskashitaa is a placement as an AmeriCorps VISTA (Volunteer in Service to America), which is the domestic branch of the Peace Corps designed to increase the capacity of non-profits.
Ms. Brown has a deep passion for public health and works to improve access to health education and healthcare for all. She has taught about HIV/AIDS in schools, churches, mosques, and civic clubs in Arizona, Sonora, and most notably in villages surrounding Arusha, Tanzania through her work with Support for International Change. She currently serves as the AIDS Task Force Chairperson for the Desert Southwest Conference of the United Methodist Church. She has also done contract work with the General Board of Global Ministries and the General Board of Church and Society on projects related to AIDS education and family planning. She presented a workshop entitled "Models of U.S. AIDS Ministries" at the Lighten the Burden International AIDS Conference in 2010.
Natalie has been a long term volunteer with Clinica Amistad, a healthcare clinic in South Tucson that offers free medical care to the uninsured. She currently serves as Clinic Coordinator as well as a member of the Board of Directors.
Ms. Brown grew up on the Colorado River Indian Reservation in Parker, Arizona and understands the injustices that indigenous people still face. She is a founding board member of Whisper n Thunder, a non-profit whose aim is to empower Native Americans through education, awareness, and opportunity.
Natalie has also worked with the Reconciling Ministries Teams of First United Methodist and St. Francis United Methodist Churches to advocate for full inclusion of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered individuals.
We congratulate Natalie for her advocacy and continued perseverance in protecting human rights in Tucson and abroad. Iskashitaa is honored to have her working with us.
For our community hours this week Annie and I visited the ESL class at Oasis apartments. We came prepared with flyers and pens, ready to take numbers of refugees who wanted to harvest on Fridays with us. When we arrived in the community room three refugee children immediately surrounded us, asking our names, shaking our hands, showing us the homework they were working on. Their names were Nima, Yosef, and Ruta and they ranged in age from about 6 to 9. They ended up being our guides through the apartments at Oasis, knocking on the doors of their numerous neighbors and translating for Annie and I. These three were full of energy and so excited to meet new people; I think they thought of us as big playmates. Once we had finished knocking on the doors we spent a few more minutes with the kids. They asked us if we went to college and told us about their elementary school. After we left all I could think of was how bright and happy the kids were. Although their parents may have struggled in coming to the United States, these three children were safe, well taken care of, and able to go to school. Seeing their excited little faces made my week, I’m hoping that I’ll be able to go back and visit them again.
-Sam
Refugee Sandwich is a compilation of short stories written by refugees and members of the Refugee Hearing Board in Canada. Although I have only read a few of the accounts, the book has already touched on a variety of thought-provoking topics. Before the selection of stories begins, the author asks the reader to engage in two quick exercises. The first is to imagine that you are in the position of having to defend yourself to a board of lawyers and judges who will decide whether or not you qualify for refugee status. The second is to imagine that you are a member of this board and you are expected to determine the claimant’s future based on a brief hearing. I thought that these role-playing exercises were extremely useful and provided a great deal of insight into how each party must be feeling as the hearing begins. The author brought up a few things I had never thought to consider: how can Boards rule out the possibility that the claimant is lying? How difficult must it be for individuals who are unfamiliar with our legal system to testify for their lives? How can the government ensure that the people serving on these boards will provide the claimant with a fair trial?
-HCET Intern, Taylor Corcoran
This week went well; I always enjoy these more interactive lessons. Dahl was particularly good at our activities involving getting the correct amount of change, adding and subtracting change, and even putting coins back in order to get more/less. I wonder if his ability to manipulate coins is related to his amazing English skills? It’s something I’ve noticed, that those who have the best English most readily understand the association of different values with the coins. I think many of our students, like Dahl’s wife Ful, understand the math problems we’re posing to them; it might just be difficult to associate a certain value with a certain coin. It’s a lot like their trouble with reading, difficulty of associating a phoneme (or in the case of English, a wide array of phonemic units) to a letter.
I’ve been thinking lately about how a person learns a second language, or how I learn a second language. When I’m reading French, or listening to someone speak it, I pick out the words I know, translate those words into English, and then cognitively understand what was read/said. Even though this happens in the fraction of a second, there is still a flow of translation. I can’t take the French word and directly associate it with the real-world referent; I have to have the English word for an intermediary. At some point, I’m hoping, I won’t need the intermediary anymore. But, does this help with initially learning a foreign language? If it does, is this possibly one reason why it is so difficult for our students to learn English? We don’t provide a Nepali translation of the English words we teach them, we try to directly link the English word with the thing it refers to (sometimes we do ask for the Nepali word though). Does this in fact make the process harder than normal?
-Kelsey Rivers, HCET Intern
