PBHA’s Summer Science is an amazing opportunity to teach science to kids in the camps PBHA runs this summer. Teachers are paired with another undergraduate to develop original activities for each of the 7 weeks the camps run. For a 20/hour a week commitment, benefits include great staff friendships, extensive workshops on creative curriculum development, training for teaching skills, and free housing. For more information on a summer of fun, please contact Noah Bruegmann (bruegm@gmail.com) or Ruby Ibanga (aribanga@post.harvard.edu).
PBHA’s St. James Summer Shelter is a student-run transitional program for 12 homeless men and women. We strive to create a stable, comfortable, and friendly environment for our guests by providing them with 3 meals a day and permanent beds for the duration of our seven-week program. By connecting guests with important resources, we help them find housing and better employment. For more info please contact Caroline McDowell (cmcdowel@fas.harvard.edu) or Katie Dahlinghaus (kdahlinghaus@gmail.com).
Do you have a love of music? How would you like to spread your love of Bob Dylan, Bach, Biggie, Barber, Britney, the Beatles, Beethoven, whomever, to adorable, adoring children? And have fun, live school-free at Harvard at no financial cost, create unexpectedly wonderful friendships and memories in the process, and have enough time of your own to squeeze in something else on top of all that?
Join PBHA’s HARMONY (Harvard and Radcliffe Musical Outreach to Neighborhood Youth) to spend your summer sharing your enthusiasm for music with cute kids. Please join us in teaching and loving music this summer! Contact Ekene Obi-Okoye (e.obiokoye@gmail.com) for more information and associated enthusiasm generators.
PBHA’s Small Claims Advisory Service (SCAS) helps advise individuals on their rights and options in small claims court through direct service, education, and advocacy. Many socio-economically-disadvantaged individuals are unaware of their rights, especially regarding consumer law, debt collection and landlord-tenant law. We believe that this disparity in information and access detracts from the legitimacy of our legal system. SCAS takes individual’s cases through our telephone service in Phillips Brooks House and assists clients in person at our community offices at Greater Boston Legal Services in downtown Boston, at our Mandarin/Cantonese office in Chinatown and at our new Spanish office in Cambridge. In 2007, SCAS helped over 1200 clients and is continuing to grow. SCAS also makes presentations in the communities we serve, publishes brochures, manuals, and videos, and advocates for structural (i.e. legislative) reform of the small claims system. For more information, please contact Marsha Sukach
(msukach@fas.harvard.edu).
There are also summer opportunities through PBHA’s SCAS Program.
PBHA’s Harvard Undergraduate Legal Committee arranges and supervises multiple programs. The Internship Program places undergraduates in public service law and advocacy firms in the Boston area. Based on interests expressed in their applications, volunteers are assigned to a legal organization. Some of these organizations focus on immigration, others on housing, child welfare, civil rights, gay rights, etc. The job descriptions of most volunteer positions extend far beyond clerical work to writing court documents, attending court sessions, interviewing clients, performing research, and organizing at the grassroots level. Given the nature of these responsibilities, volunteers interact with and advocate for low income or traditionally underrepresented clients while gaining significant real world experience. HULC also sponsors dinners with guest speakers in relevant fields, visits to different sites, an advocacy campaign, a mentor program, and the only national Public Interest and Law Conference. For more information, please contact HarvardULC@gmail.com, or Pierre R. Berastaín (pberast@fas.harvard.edu).
There are also summer opportunities through PBHA’s Habitat for Humanity program.
PBHA’s Housing Opportunities Program is a microfinance program dedicated to the prevention of homelessness in the Boston area. HOP runs a revolving loan fund and provides no-interest credit and counseling to clients in danger of being evicted from their homes. Staffed entirely by volunteers and funded entirely by donations, HOP is living proof that, even in the world’s most developed nation, microfinance is a viable method of combating poverty and destitution.
For information, please contact Cliff Beltzer (beltzer@fas) or Sophie Cai (scai@fas) or hop@hcs.harvard.edu, or call 617-495-1970. Website: http://www.hcs.harvard.edu/~hop/
There are also summer opportunities through PBHA’s Housing Opportunities Program.
HABITAT FOR HUMANITY is a non-profit “housing ministry” that seeks to eliminate homelessness and poverty housing. Working with partner families, Habitat builds and/or renovates simple, decent houses which are then sold to the families through affordable, no-interest loans. HARVARD HABITAT FOR HUMANITY serves as a link between Harvard University students and HFH chapters in Eastern Massachusetts. Though Harvard HFH does not manage its own work sites, it does connect local Habitat sites with student volunteers on Saturdays during term. These volunteers help see sites through from foundation to furniture, and work side by side with other college students, members of the community, and partner families to get the job done. Harvard HFH’s link expands every Spring Break, when it sends groups of volunteers to other work sites in the Eastern United States. Harvard HFH also works on raising awareness of housing issues, combining forces with other Boston-area chapters, and sharing idea and experiences with college chapters around the world. If you would like to come on a work trip, please email habitat@hcs or directors Julie Chan (jlchan@fas) or Irina Perjar (iperjar@gmail.com) See http://www.hcs.harvard.edu/~habitat.
There are also summer opportunities through PBHA’s Habitat for Humanity program.
Chinatown ESL allows its volunteers the unique opportunity to teach a class of enthusiastic, motivated adults, mostly recent Chinese immigrants. Our free classes are incredibly popular in the Chinatown community, so we are always looking for new tutors! No teaching experience or Chinese language ability are necessary, although Cantonese speakers are always especially in demand. ESL offers five levels of classes, from beginning fundamentals to advanced conversation; lessons focus on developing practical conversational, reading, and writing skills useful for everyday situations. Curriculum is provided and classes are on campus once a week for two hours. For more information, please contact Siran Cao (si.c.1216@gmail.com), Naomi Funabashi (funabashi@fas.harvard.edu), Iris Lee (iristlee@gmail.com), Jun Ying Liu (jyliu@fas.harvard.edu), Marion Liu (mliu42189@gmail.com), or Wilson Yu (wilsonyu@fas.harvard.edu).
Chinatown Citizenship prepares students for the American naturalization process by teaching basic English along with American history and government. Citizenship is held in Harvard Yard: the two-hour classes take place on weekends from 1:30 to 3:30. All volunteers teach in pairs. Volunteers are trained and provided with curriculum materials but still retain full creative flexibility in designing lesson plans to best fit the needs of their students. Chinatown Citizenship is a fun, valuable, and rewarding program for all its participants, teachers and students alike. We have levels suitable for volunteers of all Mandarin and Cantonese abilities! For more information, please email ccitizenship@gmail.com or Angela Liu (liu11@fas), Zhi Dong (zhidong2012@gmail.com), Edith Chan (echan@fas), and Chi Zhang (chiez7@gmail.com)
There are also summer opportunities through PBHA’s Chinatown Citizenship Program.
