Vancouver Urban Ministries
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Mission Statement
Vancouver Urban Ministries helps children from low-income families with learning difficulties take big strides in their education and fulfil their potential. Through our free one-on-one therapeutic tutoring program we aim to help children who are more than 2 years behind in their education to catch up to grade level before entering secondary education. We use the evidence-based Orton-Gillingham approach to provide the tools that our students need to overcome their learning challenges and thrive in their education.
About This Cause
Vancouver Urban Ministries is a registered charity working with children and families in the poorest neighborhoods of East Vancouver. We work with some of the most vulnerable children in our community. The children we serve all struggle with learning challenges such as dyslexia, ADHD, Fetal Alcohol Syndrome Disorder, mild autism, and other learning disorders. Some of our children also present with behavioral problems. A significant percentage of our students belong to recent immigrant families where the parents do not speak English at home. The families of our children are from Indigenous, immigrant Chinese, Syrian Refugee and Filipino families. Many of our children are being raised in low-income, single parent families. Without the free tutoring help provided by Vancouver Urban Ministries, the students on the program would not be able to afford specialized tutoring and would struggle with very poor literacy and its consequences for the rest of their lives. The children are referred to our tutoring program by their local schools because they are at least two years behind in their education, and often are non-readers. We received children from all elementary grades on our program. We provide the students with two hours per week of free one-on-one therapeutic tutoring during after-school programs. Our tutors receive 32 hours of free training in the Orton-Gillingham approach prior to engaging with a student. The children are assessed for literacy when they enter our program and at regular intervals to check their progress in reading, writing and spelling. We also provide students with free piano and classical guitar lessons through our music school. We believe that engagement with music, and participation in playing an instrument is also beneficial to a child's educational development and has been shown to help children in other disciplines besides music. We work with the families through monthly family gatherings where we provide a nutritious meal and present and discuss subjects which help strengthen family relationships and help provide a good family foundation which is conducive to children's ability to learn. Vancouver Urban Ministries also provides Life Skills workshops which enable the students on our programs to also gain other necessary skills to succeed in life, such as communication, relationship, decision making, goal setting and other skills.