For Evanston Rotarian Gary Schultz and volunteers with the Evanston Lighthouse Rotary Club’s English Language Project, the English language could be a solution for rural poverty thousands of miles away.
Over the last three summers, Schultz has been taking volunteers to work at Stains Memorial Children’s Homes in the city of Madurai in the rural southern state of Tamil Nadu, India, to teach English as a Second Language. Volunteers from the Chicago area and parts of Wisconsin have helped children achieve intermediate and advanced English fluency. The methods the tutors employ to test the level of English fluency among the children are taken from the Milwaukee Public School system.
“We know it works now,” Schultz said. “Now we have to keep it up with the help of volunteers.”
A retired Presbyterian minister, Schultz said the idea began when he joined a group from West Bend, Wis., on a trip to India in 2003. While there, he visited local schools and talked to teachers that were beginning to realize students were going to graduate without English skills.
Though English is the second official language of India, many citizens who are not of the elite business class never learn to speak it, closing them off from some job opportunities. Speaking English may be the only way for millions of children to escape poverty, Schultz said.
“I came back and decided an orphanage would be ideal to teach spoken English,” Schultz said.
After returning to the U.S., he took a five-week course in Madison, Wis., that certified him to teach ESL anywhere in the world. However, any willing volunteers, with or without ESL training, are eligible to travel and tutor with the program, said Bill Glader, public relations director of the ELRC.
People from the ELRC and the local community supported the creation of an English tutoring program, Schultz said.
The ELRC, a nonprofit organization funded through donations, has raised money for the construction of three rooms to house six on-site volunteers in Tamil Nadu from one to four months. Volunteers cover the cost of travel, which is about $2,500. The program is also open to taking groups of up to 12 volunteer tutors, who will be able to live in new dorm-style housing also funded by the ELRC.
The volunteers that have made the trip over the past three years have included retirees, college students, parents and children, Schultz said. He will be making his next trip this November with a recent high school graduate who is taking a gap year to travel and work.
One volunteer who made the journey last summer is Gail Glassman, now a fifth-year in the Early Adolescence through Adolescence program at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Glassman said one of the best parts of the ELRC project is the adult interaction it brings to children who may have lost their parents and now lack adult influences.
“Many don’t have grown people in their lives who want to put in the time (for them),” Glassman said. “Some of the kids don’t have people who truly care, so it’s always good to have people go in and interact.”
As for the future of the program, Schultz said one long-range goal of the ELRC is to turn it into a new non-governmental organization that will both fund and recruit new volunteers. Schultz said this goal is in sight with the addition of new housing and the acquisition of a primary school by the orphanage.
Glassman said she’s focused on graduating school for the moment, but returning to India in the future is not out of the question.
“Maybe I’ll go back in the future,” Glassman said. “India will always be a big part of my life. There’s nothing else quite like it.”
