Advancement of Education: To advance education by providing educational aids and tutoring sessions to students attending elementary and secondary school. Currently we are mentoring and tutoring School children and youths. This program has been in place since 2016. Currently there are four qualified teachers and nine other educators as instructors for our program. Many more casual volunteers commit their time and energy towards providing the needs to make the program successful. Advancement of education program also deals with public awareness. Many, perhaps most, newcomers have not attended school and have little understanding of the importance of education.
We provide seminars, workshops and symposiums focusing on how to parent school children. These seminars are provided by FOCAS alone or in partnerships with other engaged communities. We work with these parents to effectively communicate with school communities, teachers, and school administrators. We offer parent centered group activities to newcomer students and refugees throughout the school year in partnership with public school administrations, teachers and interested stakeholders.
The purpose of the program is to boost school performance, reduce risk behavior, reduce dropout, and promote a structured and safe environment for the students. The program is an opportunity to bridge the gap between students, parents, and school administration.We provide computers and other teaching materials for our students for free. We get the donation of computers mostly from Alberta Computer for School and from the Government of Canada through the Red Cross COVID19 has forced us to offer online sessions for our students at this time. Computers have become a necessary tool for each student. We do not offer our own curriculum or certificates or exams.
We support school children with public or private school activities. Homework, tutoring, and mentoring are provided. March 2020, we have purchased online teaching programs like IXL, Mathletics, RAZ Kids and TED TALK. We help the students work on these programs, which are taught in schools as well. As mentioned before, our volunteer teachers and mentors are qualified teachers and professionals of different fields with many years of teaching and work experience. Most of them are internationally trained and are Canadian elementary and high school teachers. The programs are offered during the weekends throughout the year. We also provide youth leadership workshops, seminars and training that are based on real actions. Ultimately, we are working to tackle potentially harmful experiences of immigrant youths, children, and families, to produce healthy and well-educated citizens for the future.
