Aurora literacy center needs volunteers to tutor women

The Dominican Literacy Center in Aurora is seeking 25 female volunteers to tutor immigrant women in English during the next school year.

Alison Brzezinski, the center's tutoring coordinator, said training sessions will be held from 6 to 8:30 p.m. Tuesdays and Thursdays, Aug. 14-23, at the center at St. Therese Church, 260 Vermont St. in Aurora.

English-speaking women with high school diplomas are invited to train to tutor women one-on-one weekly to read, write and speak English.

Tutors meet with students weekly for 90 minutes from September to May at the literacy center.

Tutors do not need to speak a foreign language or have teaching experience. Instruction materials are available.

Contact Alison Brzezinski at (630) 898-4636, alison@dominicanliteracycenter.org, or visit dominicanliteracycenter.org for information or to register.

Since 1993, more than 2,500 women have come to the Dominican Literacy Center to learn to read, write and speak English. Many of these women had little or no education in their home countries, but they know that, to succeed in their new country, it is necessary for them to learn English.

The organization believes that individual tutoring by trained volunteers is a way to impart language instruction. Trained volunteers help each woman to understand her strengths and weaknesses, and to use those strengths to learn English. The outcome of this tutoring program is women who can communicate and participate totally in the their families, their communities, and their workplaces.

At the Dominican Literacy Center, they believe that each woman has a right to have a voice in her new country, and help her find that voice.