On April 27, Commonpoint Queens hosted CIANA on their Facebook feed to talk about our programs and services for immigrants, as well to explain our COVID-19 outreach efforts and immigrant advocacy initiatives. A full video of the live presentation is now available below and on Facebook: CIANA staff highlighted the main features of our holistic immigrant integration model: Director of Educational Programs Sophie Riina described our virtual English and Civics classes for adults,

Mary Kelly has been a tutor at CIANA’s Elementary Afterschool Program since May 2020, early in the pandemic. Mary joined our team of volunteer tutors when we were still bringing our programs online and figuring out whether we could keep serving our clients as meaningfully from a distance as we had in person. We found that running our tutoring programs virtually ensures that students get consistent, one-on-one homework help, and are still able to improve their academic skills

On April 21, CIANA staff participated in virtual lobbying to pass the New York for All Act, which aims to protect immigrant families.

Learning English is one of the most important skills new arrivals to the U.S. need to gain. Having a teacher dedicated to helping them learn English and challenging them to overcome the obstacle of learning a new language is one of the most invaluable resources that new immigrants can have. For Katya Mushik, CIANA’s current ESL instructor, teaching English is a way to help immigrants start the journey of integrating into life in the U.S. We are grateful to Katya for helping o

Every week, volunteer tutor Michael del Toro brings his varied academic and extracurricular skills and interests to CIANA’s afterschool tutoring program and shares them with our elementary school-aged students. In celebration of National Volunteer Month, Michael now shares with us his reflections on tutoring at CIANA during this academic year. How did you decide to tutor at CIANA’s afterschool program? When I was in ninth grade, I realized that I really enjoy teaching subject