TORUS
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Mission Statement
Torus bridges gaps between people and communities by facilitating transformative experiences of language and culture exchange.
About This Cause
Torus was founded in 2020 by Ramin Tokhi who was born in Kabul, Afghanistan, raised in Moscow, Russia and lives in Portland, Oregon. The organization was formed from Ramin’s experiences as a naturalized citizen in the US, as someone who learned to speak English, adding to Russian and Dari, and then learned to teach it as he rose through the ranks of partner organization People-Places-Things. Torus bridges gaps between people and communities by facilitating transformative experiences of language and culture exchange. We do this work through our different programs. We believe in connectivity and a sense of belonging to a community for immigrants and refugees, as well as anyone who has been living in the US for generations. Since 2020, Torus has been actively working with Oregon Health Authority to do community outreach and to educate immigrant and refugee populations about COVID-19. This work has led to several meaningful and impactful collaborations with other organizations in the Portland metropolitan area: 1. Torus has contracted with Rockwood CDC to bring community health workers from diverse backgrounds into our free online one-on-one English classes via zoom to talk about COVID-19. Learners were able to ask questions and learn more about COVID-19 from professionals while practicing English at the same time. We provided 1,722 hours of one-on-one English classes to 107 English learners in Oregon and SW Washington. English learners in our program come from many different language backgrounds and a total of 18 different languages were represented. Examples of the languages spoken are Spanish, Farsi, Vietnamese, Japanese, Russian, and Arabic. Torus volunteers have been essential in the success of this program and a total of 93 ESL Facilitators participated in 2020. Volunteers from Oregon and across the United States have been getting involved in this virtual volunteer opportunity and supporting the community here in Oregon. 2. From January to December 2021, Torus provided 4,106 hours of one-on-one and group English classes to 230 English learners. English learners in our program come from many different language backgrounds and a total of 26 different languages were represented. Examples of the languages spoken are Spanish, Russian, Thai, Vietnamese, and Farsi. Torus volunteers have been essential in the success of this program and a total of 229 ESL Facilitators participated in 2021. Volunteers from Oregon and across the United States have been getting involved in this virtual volunteer opportunity and supporting the community here in Oregon. We have worked with Oregon's HealthShare Plan to conduct free English group classes online through zoom. We paid our learners stipends for showing up to 4 classes to learn about COVID-19. On average, we had about 20 learners showing up and a couple registrations for vaccines as a result of our efforts to educate our community about the vaccines. From May 2021 to October 2021 Torus bilingual staff, bilingual volunteers and English language learners have helped Rosewood initiative to vaccinate community members in SE Portland. We have served the community by interpreting and translating, handing out water/food, managing crowd flow, distributing flyers, and registering our language learners for vaccination. We have been transforming our immigrant and refugee communities by providing linguistic and cultural access to different resources, mitigating language barriers, and helping to navigate the US systems while practicing English at the same time. We were able to serve on average 80-100 SE residents every Saturday from 12pm to 5pm. 3. In April of 2022, Torus has launched a multilingual resource app that helps immigrants and refugees get access to simplified version of COVID-19 information. Our goal is to meet the current need of COVID19 education for immigrants, refuges, & English language learners while setting us up for success with Torus's core programs post COVID. At the moment, the app provides language accessibility, and simplified text information in English about COVID19 and vaccines translated into Dari, Russian and Thai. Then, as we go back to normal life, we are going to transform the app into a language learning platform and resource center specifically for immigrant and refugee populations. The app was featured on OHA website: https://covidblog.oregon.gov/new-app-helps-russian-thai-and-persian-language-speakers-find-information-about-covid-19/ Our current need is around transitioning our ED to a full-time employment instead of contracting and increasing hours for our volunteer coordinator. This would allow us to develop capacity and be able to do this work more effectively. Torus is a very young nonprofit but is growing rapidly. Almost all of our funding is currently tied to a couple large funding sources that support our efforts to respond to the COVID19 pandemic - but these aren't our core programs, and this funding won't support us into the future. In fact, it could all dry up very quickly as the pandemic comes under control. We are seeking out donations to improve our long-term financial stability and create a more reliable source of funding. Thank you so much for reading about our impact, needs, and for your consideration to donate!