The Local Oasis
How one program changes the reality of migrant education in Athens, Georgia.
Sister Uyen-Chi Dang rakes crisp leaves and chats pleasantly in Spanish with young mothers as three large yellow school buses pull into the Pinewoods North Estates neighborhood.
The expectant silence and emptiness in the courtyard of Oasis Católico de Santa Rafaela is suddenly overtaken by the unloading children’s quick footsteps, laughter, and excited conversation. It’s just another Monday afternoon at the tutoring center.
A relaxed smile takes over Sister Uyen-Chi’s face as she greets the kids by name, checks in with them, and relates stories about them to me.
Oasis Católico de Santa Rafaela is an after school tutoring program in northeastern Athens, Georgia which was founded seventeen years ago by Sister Uyen-Chi’s counterpart Sister Margarita Martin. Currently Sister Uyen-Chi, Sister Margarita, and Sister Marietta Jansen, Catholic sisters of the Handmaids of the Sacred Heart of Jesus who also work at the University of Georgia Catholic Center, run the program.
The majority of the almost 100 children in the Oasis program, and their families, are Latinx immigrants. Ninety percent of the students who participate at Oasis are first- or second- generation Mexican immigrants or of Mexican descent. The remaining 10 percent are of South American origin. They live among the Pinewoods North Estates mobile home community’s colorful trailers and well-loved gardens.
The small complex of trailers and a playground that make up the Oasis center provides tutoring services and support for these students and their families. While young migrant students can face complicated systematic barriers, this program provides a place where Spanish- and English-speaking cultures enrich one another, and educational support presents a sort of “oasis” to the Pinewoods youth who face challenges and confusion each day.
Zooming Out
Athens, Georgia is a unique southern city where many different communities collide: University of Georgia students and staff, restaurant and shop owners, blue collar workers, and more.
The Latinx portion of the Athens community has nearly doubled since 2000 and now makes up roughly 10.6% of the Athens Clarke County population and 22.5% of the county’s school district, according to a study conducted by PORTAL, the University of Georgia’s Latin American and Caribbean Studies Institute’s U.S. Hispanic/Latinx research and outreach initiative.
This population is overwhelmingly young with the median age ranging from 31 to 35 and 80% of it is made up by kids under 18 years old.
The majority of immigrants come to Athens in search of agricultural work and many end up finding community in places like Pinewoods and staying to start families, according to Elizabeth Dubberly, a Migrant Education Specialist for the federal Migrant Education Program.
As in all cities where citizens of various cultural, educational, or socioeconomic backgrounds converge, certain groups become marginalized and consequently receive fewer opportunities than the others.
The Latinx adults of Athens are initially placed at a disadvantage since 37.9% of them have received less than 12 years of formal schooling and a significant 61% of them only feel confident communicating in Spanish. But they want better for their kids.
Children from immigrant families like these are often hindered by gaps in their early education due to language barriers, cultural differences, and a lack of resources.
Dubberly explains how the federally funded Migrant Education Program puts money into hiring people like her who work one-on-one with students in whatever academic areas they need help in and act as the “go to person” for migrant families.
This program is a part of Title I Part C of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 meaning it provides care for children who may otherwise “slip through the cracks” such as the homeless, delinquent, or migratory. Families must have moved across state lines in the last three months to be eligible for the program.
“Our goal is to provide advancement opportunities for migrant out of school and drop out youth, facilitate school transition for our participants and close the achievement gap between our migrant students and their peers by assisting with high quality academic support and creating high expectations for our students,” according to the Clarke County School District’s Migrant Education webpage.
“Students should never miss out on an opportunity because they couldn’t get a permission slip signed. We make sure to bridge that gap between the school and parents to ensure their kid is getting a fair chance,” Dubberly further explains.
During her varied day to day work, Dubberly does everything from helping a ninth-grader learn the quadratic equation to sitting with a fifth-grader at lunch to encourage him to make friends.
Dubberly said that the single biggest gap in education she has found between migrant students and their peers in Athens is their hesitancy to immerse themselves socially, which can have a huge impact on their academic and emotional development.
She enthusiastically expressed the potential communities like Pinewoods and neighborhood centers like Oasis have to remedy this issue.
She said, “I breathe a sigh of relief whenever I find out one of my new families is moving to Pinewoods because I know they’ll have the community and the sisters to embrace them.”
A day in the life at Oasis
The Oasis Católico de Santa Rafaela tutoring program is in full swing on a Monday afternoon and the students are excitedly practicing their English vocabulary with their college-aged tutors. The tutors at Oasis are about 250 mainly University of Georgia students who come once a week to work with one or two students throughout the afternoon. They are students from all majors, from education to biochemical engineering, and often return year after year.
The sisters run a well-oiled machine and with constant smiles and gentle grace. They’re committed to giving this often underserved community the care it deserves. Each afternoon, the tutors and children work on reading, conversational skills and math skills, completing their homework in these areas. To wrap up the day they have recess and exercise time with their tutors.
Throughout the afternoon, Sister Uyen-Chi bounces around the various trailers, congratulating second-graders on spelling animal names correctly and explaining proper arithmetic to the fourth-graders.
Oasis focuses on more than just academic skills though. One of their main focuses is “healing hearts.” An integral way the program completes this comes at the end of the day when chosen students receive small prizes, usually treats or stickers, for the academic work or behavior they excelled in that day.
Additionally, Sister Uyen-Chi shares that “recess is just as important as their studies. This is a time for the children to get their exercise while really bonding with the tutors.”
Oasis Católico is an incredibly unique program and provides a strong base for students faced with initial limitations to achieve a brighter future.
A wider impact
Near the end of my afternoon at Oasis, Sr. Uyen-Chi walked me throughout the Pinewoods neighborhood to show me where she and Sister Margarita live. We took in the colorful scenery, petted passing dogs, and waved to her neighbors along the way.
The sisters’ trailer stands out from the others. It has a gigantic mural of the Virgin of Guadalupe (“Virgen de Guadalupe”), a well-known Catholic symbol of Mexico, on the front wall and a small, screen-porch chapel attached to the side.
Sister Uyen-Chi gestures to her home and says, “this is how we live, as the people live…we just want them to always know we are here.”
The Oasis goes beyond just a tutoring center, it is an entire community’s support system and a buffer from the outside world. Sister Uyen-Chi describes herself as a sort of “liaison” between the Pinewoods residents and the wider Athens community and she does anything for her people that promotes her mission of “giving a voice to the voiceless.”
Oasis’ mission is truly infectious to the Athens community and has a deep impact not only on the participants in the program but also the tutors who return week after week, year after year, to tutor. While the migrant youth receive the educational and social support they need, UGA students in turn receive exposure to a culture and community which they may not encounter otherwise. Joining these two communities together has allowed them each to mutually influence, educate and support each other.
“I first started tutoring at Oasis to fulfill a requirement for my Early Childhood Education major, but now I can’t stop going back. I have learned so much from the kids I work with and their excitement despite their circumstances is truly the highlight of my week,” says UGA sophomore Eileen Clark.
So, while migrant educational achievement gaps remain a complex issue on a nation-wide scale, programs like Oasis Catolico de Santa Rafaela are making necessary changes locally. Sister Uyen-Chi and Sister Margarita saw a community that needed recognition and now dedicate their daily lives to supporting it structurally and emotionally, all the while making an indelible mark on Athens as a whole.
