First Day at St. Christopher House

Feb.18th, 2011

First Day at St. Christopher House:

I have scheduled a meeting with Judi Snively, the adult learning coordinator at St. Christopher House, to discuss what to do and to plan how to effectively and successfully fulfill the service learning activity.  

I have decided to a research on St. Christopher House before I be there to prepare myself what kind of skills the community center is looking for and find out how the center is helping people in the community to accomplish its visions and goals.

Being one of the largest community centers in Toronto area, It also had a long history at the behind.  St. Christopher House was founded around 100 years ago as a settlement house.  Although it has been moved from its founding location, its goal of assisting people in the community never perished; It is continuously serving approximately 10,000 individuals in the community with its own designed programs.

I have arrived about 15 minutes earlier than scheduled along with my friend, Sungjun. The first impression that I have gained is that the people who are visiting the center is diverse: not just seniors, but from a kindergarten kid to an old person with different ethnic backgrounds. Judi mentioned that the most of visitors are immigrants or refugees to Canada. Leaving the surprise behind, Judi guided us to a meeting room. while we walk through the hallway, she briefly explained the tasks that would require volunteers' help: web server setup, desktop admin, webpage admin, and "Bang the Drum" which is the program that teaches how to use computers and technologies to people who doesn't have any or have minor knowledge on computers. I have chosen to participate in the "Bang the Drum" program, because this is the only choice that involves with teaching which cannot be easily obtained while working in the IT fields. Since many volunteers have missed this orientation meeting, we had a chance to discuss about the "Bang the Drum" program more deeply.

As a start, she briefly explained about the program itself. The program consists several courses including internet use, office programs, Windows, and other basic computing courses, which are held by volunteers like myself. To continuously provide quality learning programs to those who have completed the basic courses, St. Christopher House is planning to expand the courses to advance technologies like HTML, Photoshop and Java programming. I have found that HTML tutoring would be suitable for myself, because HTML always been the area of my strength and I have felt that the language itself would be easy to start from scratch for those of who doesn't have any knowledge in programming.

According to what Judi have said, the "Bang the Drum" program was in decline. Not only because the number of volunteers are decreasing, mainly due to the shortage in funding. The recent economic crisis have hit the country hard, especially in the government budget. As of winter 2010, Human Resources and Skills Development Canada have decided to curtail the supports to Community Technology Learning projects, including the "Bang the Drum" program. "We need more volunteers to keep the program running." Judi said.

As being one of the countries where the immigrants serve as the largest portion in the  national population, I have felt that it is not a wise decision to curtail the funding. The policy may not show its effect in a short period of time, but in a long term perspective, the decrease in education level among the immigrants would lead to the downfall in the national competitiveness. With hope that the government withdraws its policy, I have made a way back home.