Hans Sandoval

Social Justice Intern

Introduction and Background
The Social Justice Internship Program
The Social Justice Internship Program (SJI) is a program at Loyola in which the selected students
intern at one of two social justice-oriented institutions: Catholic Charities and Misericordia.
Students in this program are required to take a complementing internship course (EXPL 390) to
facilitate their learning at their internship site.
Findings and Discoveries
General
Refugees are adapting and getting accustomed to their new life in the United States when they
first arrive and as a result they are in need of assistance provided by refugee agencies like Catholic
Charities. The specific assistance needed may vary family to family, but there are many common
needed areas for support. The common difficulties that affect newly- arrived refugee families are
things like language barriers, finding employment, getting accustomed to American culture etc.
Reflections and takeaways
Personal experience of Internship
Before I began my internship, I did not know what to expect, and I was very nervous to start the
position. I had no previous experience or knowledge about refugees and had no prior experience
with working with young children. When I began my internship, I needed to learn about refugee
children very fast. In this process, I was humbled by what I learned about refugee children. When I
first started my internship, things that are common place to refugee children surprised me. Things
like, the rate of illiteracy, the lack of formal education in their home country, lack of prior health
care, really gave me perspective on how people in other parts of the world experience life and also

Catholic Charities School and Tutoring how I have been fortunate in my life. My first experiences with interacting with refugees with
some of these above mentioned circumstances was in the weekly tutoring sessions I attended
Many refugee children experience difficulties when they begin school in the US. Common every Wednesday since the start of my internship. I was astounded to find out that some of the
Catholic Charities is a social service provider and branch of the Catholic Church in Chicago. It
difficulties: high school-aged refugee students I was tutoring never learned how to multiply, yet they were
provides over 150 programs and offers close to 30 social services like immigration and
For some refugee children, enrollment in US school is first time they have attended school. forced to take algebra and geometry. At first, I had no idea how to tutor anyone in algebra and
naturalization services, adoption services, senior community-based services, and refugee
There is very little accommodation to place student-aged refugees in grades appropriate for geometry if they didnt know how to multiply. However, this internship caused me to think of
resettlement services among others. For more than 98 years, Catholic Charities as sought to see
their educational knowledge and in many cases educational gap; students are usually placed creative ways to assist the refugee children. I started asking for a print out of a times table sheet
the face of God in those in need. By providing food, clothing, shelter and counseling, we bring
in the grade that corresponds with their age. and asked some of the students who did not know how to multiply to place their two fingers on
hope to the hopeless in the city of Chicago and its suburbs.
Some children are illiterate in their native language; this is especially difficult for high school- the two numbers that they wanted to multiply and the number where their two fingers would
Refugee Resettlement aged children because it makes it extra difficult to learn English.
Some high school-aged refugees have never learned how to multiply but are still required to
meet would be the answer. Also, it was difficult to effectively tutor the students because of the
language barrier. When I first began, I found it very frustrating to not be able to clearly
Catholic Charities has resettled refugees for over 40 years. take algebra and geometry. communicate with the students. However, during the countless hours that I have tutored the
Services provided: Common for student-aged refugees to struggle with making friends due to language barrier. refugee students, I have been inspired by their resilience in the face of the challenges that they
Securing housing and providing food, Some teachers are very accommodating and understanding but other teachers do not face becoming accustomed to school in the US. I have also been humbled by the refugee students
clothing, and household items accommodate and give students Fs and Ds. perseverance; it has made me reflect on how fortunate I have been and how important it is to be
Applying for public benefits, Social Common for newly arrived student-aged refugees to have very poor report card grades; an advocate for this community.
Security cards, and State IDs grades usually increase the more time they life in the US and the better their English gets.
Scheduling required health screenings I also had many insights during the countless dental and eye visits that I took my students on. The
and addressing emergency health
problems;
Eye and Dental first insight that I had with eye and dental exams was how much work has to be put in to schedule
Eye and dental exams can be more important and pivotal for refugee children than for their dental and eye appointments. I had to schedule eye and dental appointments around the
Orienting refugees to public childrens school schedule, the parents schedule, the dental and eye offices schedule, and my
American-born counterparts. This is due to the fact that it is common for many of the refugee
transportation schedule. This required me to call families many times and call eye and dental offices many times
children to have had little to no previous experience and/or access to health care in their home
Enrolling refugee families in English classes to schedule appointments. One big challenge was that many of the dental and eye doctors where I
country. Things of note in eye and dental examinations:
Providing cultural orientation was instructed to take my students only would take new patients in the morning and afternoon so
Some refugee families have little to no experience with Western medicine, which makes the
Ensuring children are enrolled in school I would be forced to take the children out of school early dismissal. This was not optimal and
families rely on the support from the staff to guide them through the medical exams for the
and helping parents understand the would prolong the process. However, the eye and dental appointments were my favorite task in
children.
U.S. education system my internship. I loved to spend personal time with the families and with the children. Assisting and
Results of the medical exams must be carefully explained to the families with consideration to
Developing relationships with advocating for the children with their dental and eye appointments was very eye opening for me
families previous knowledge of medical examinations.
employers to assist in job placement and rewarding. During these appointments, I was able to get to know the families and this gave me
The families with the least previous experience with medical examinations tend to be the
for refugees access to getting to know the humanity of refugees. On these appointments, I got to know the
most trustful and depend on the staff to take the lead for them in eye and dental exams.
The families with extensive previous experience with medical examination tend to be more human side of refugees and created a bond of respect with many of them.
demanding and ask for translators to be present and are more worried about understanding
the results of the exams.
Dental exams tend to be more important than eye exams for refugee children. Many refugee
children tend to have teeth in need of extensive work, which has commonly led to the
children having to attend multiple dental appointments to fix their teeth.

K-12 Position Tasks

The K-12 program at Catholic Charities is tasked with assisting all school-aged refugees (4-18
years-old) with their academic formation and progress.
Tasks of K-12 intern:
School Orientation/ School Registration
This is an orientation with both parents and children to explain the American
school system.
Parents learn about their rights as parents and their responsibility to be
active in their childrens education.
Session usually concludes with parents and children traveling with staff to
the childrens new school to register the children.
Tutoring
Catholic Charities provides both group tutoring and one-on-one tutoring.
Every Wednesday, Catholic Charities hosts a group tutoring session at a local
Chicago Public Library location in Devon.
Catholic Charities also provides tutoring at refugee families homes where
volunteers go to families homes to tutor.
Report Card Pickup
Twice a year, Chicago Public Schools hosts a card pickup day in which parents
and students can pick up their report cards and talk to teachers about the
students progress.
Staff and interns are tasks with assisting families with report card pickup and
to meet with students teachers and to take note of students academic
progress.
Eye and Dental
In accordance with Chicago Public School policy, all CPS students must have a
recent eye and dental examination; CPS requires immunization forms from
eye and dental offices.
K-12 staff and intern are tasked with taking and assisting refugee children
with eye and dental exams
The refugee families are given the filled-out school forms that the children
must submit to their schools.
Socialization
Newly-arrived school-aged refugees also must adapt socially to their new life in the US. Here are
some of my observations:
Some refugee children experience isolation when adapting to new life in the US.
Due to language barrier, many refugee children struggle with making friends. However,
refugee children tend to make more friends as their English improves.
It is common for refugee children to gravitate toward other students at their school that speak
their native language whether these other students are fellow refugees or American-born
students that happen to be bilingual in the refugee children's native language.
Due to newly-arrived families unfamiliarity with Chicago, it is common for many of the
children to not regularly leave the home other than to attend the school or to rarely travel
outside of the neighborhood in which the families live.
Because of the need to earn money, many times both parents work. This may go counter with
their cultural norms in which one parent (usually the mother) should raise the children. This
may cause the parents to be frustrated about not being able to spend much time with their
children. This can cause the teenage children to have to become caretakers to the younger
children.
Some of the teenaged refugees feel pressure to work full-time to help support the family
instead of going to school.
The group tutoring sessions that many of the school-aged refugees attend help them form
community with their fellow refugee counterparts.
Many of the refugees identify with and especially enjoy working with the younger staff and
interns because of smaller gap of age difference.
Takeaway
The number one takeaway that I received from this internship is the importance to be an
advocate and ally for a marginalized community. Although I witnessed the challenges and
hardships that refugees faced throughout this internship, most importantly I saw the brilliance and
resilience of this community. I witnessed the love and kindness of refugees and the innocence and
intelligence of refugee children. I come out of this internship understanding that to be an advocate
for the refugee community one cannot view this community as broken or in need of fixing but
rather one must see this community as a source of untapped potential that can become a rich
asset if given the opportunity and resources. The numerous refugee families that I worked with all
taught me valuable lessons about the refugee community and about myself. I learned about the
profound power of getting proximate to a marginalized community. I also learned about how easily
marginalized communities can be demonized by those who have no knowledge and experience
with the marginalized communities that they target. This internship gave me the opportunity to
see the true nature of the refugee community and gave me the once in a lifetime opportunity to
get to know the humanity of the refugee community from the inside. I truly will be forever grateful
for the countless experiences that I have had with the refugee families and children that I had the
privilege of interacting with and working with.
Work Cited
Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Chicago. About Us. Accessed April 17, 2017,
https://catholiccharities.net/AboutUs.aspx
Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Chicago. Refugee Resettlement Program. Last modified
April 4, 2016.
http://www.catholiccharities.net/Portals/0/Programs%20and%20Services/Refugee%20Resettleme
nt/RefugeeResettlment_FS_040716.pdf