Helping Newcomer Children Feel at Home
Center for Immigrant and Refugee Health (CIRH), a program of Public Health Institute (PHI), is proud to highlight the efforts of our dedicated grantee, San Diego Refugee Tutoring, in providing culturally responsive and accessible services to Afghan refugees across California through the Afghan Refugee School Impact—Support to Schools (ARSI—S2S) program. This initiative is made possible with support from the California Department of Social Services (CDSS) and the Office of Immigrant Youth (OIY).
The following story was originally written and shared by San Diego Refugee Tutoring and is shared here to highlight the impact of community support for refugee families.
At seven years old, Noora’s life turned upside down. Noora and her family fled Afghanistan in 2024 and were placed in temporary housing in suburban San Diego with no transportation, no assistance to enroll in school, no furniture in the home, no Afghan families in walking distance, and no English.
Luckily, Noora’s principal referred her family to San Diego Refugee Tutoring (SDRT). SDRT helped them navigate school enrollment, showed them how the buses worked in San Diego by riding the buses with them, brought them blankets and furniture, and enrolled Noora and her six siblings in our after-school tutoring program.
SDRT’s twice-weekly tutoring program pairs each student with a tutor for 90 minutes and provides individualized English instruction, academic support, mentorship, and, most importantly, connection and community. Slowly, the personalities of Noora’s siblings blossomed along with their ability to express themselves in English.
However, Noora remained painfully shy and guarded. For months, she was unable to speak at school or even in her own home as the culture shock of leaving everything she had ever known behind proved too overwhelming for a quiet third grader.
But our staff and volunteers continued to build a connection with her over several months. Executive Director Melissa Phillips would pick Noora and her siblings up and take them to and from tutoring while playing Pashto pop songs in her car. Her regular tutors would read easy bilingual books in English and Pashto with Noora while learning some Pashto phrases along the way.
By December, we learned that, out of everything Noora missed from Afghanistan, she missed her dollhouse the most. That is when SDRT decided to surprise her with a new dollhouse of her own. And with something as simple as a dollhouse to help anchor her, Noora’s shyness turned into confidence. She began talking again! And now, when Noora arrives at tutoring, it is with a huge smile and a greeting for her tutors.
Even though Noora’s family was placed in permanent housing further away, they have committed another year of tutoring with SDRT. It is a privilege that our families trust their children with us. And while we cannot claim to fully understand how they feel as newcomers to this country, we can commit to working our hardest to ensure each of our students feel loved, capable, and supported in their academic journeys in San Diego.
Centering Culture to Build Connection
At CIRH, we are proud to partner with the Afghan Refugee Relief in providing services that meet Afghan Refugee clients where they are, with empathy, respect, and understanding.
Through the Refugee School Impact (RSI) Program, our partners provide holistic, linguistically appropriate care that supports the well-being of refugee communities.
