PIVE

2007-10-18T22:36:00.001-05:00

Please visit our BRAND NEW website at www.nypive.org for the latest information on PIVE. Thanks!

Long Overdue Update

2007-07-09T15:10:00.000-05:00

We apologize for not having updated in awhile. There are a few things we want to report on!

Workshop News

PIVE held its first workshop, entitled Enfrentando las Barreras del Lenguaje (Confronting Language Barriers), in June for the Jackson Heights community. The workshop covered the right to translation and interpretation services, as well as the types of ELL programs available in NYC.

We are currently working to develop our Parent Leadership curriculum which will be used to give workshops at different community groups.

NICE, our sponsor and ally has requested TWO workshops for its ESL students on issues for immigrant parents and education. The workshops will be held on June 19 and 24 at 10 am at the NICE office. On the 19th, we will repeat the aforementioned workshop on language barriers. On the 24th, we will be running a workshop on the importance of parent teacher conferences as a way to stay involved and aware. We are currently working to integrate English lessons within these workshops!

We are also currently gathering information on nonprofit organizations throughout NYC who might be interested in allowing us to do on-site workshops for their members or ESL students. If you have any suggestions, please e-mail us at nypive@gmail.com.

Website News

We are currently exploring options for the launch of a PIVE website. As we develop more educational materials and fact sheets, we feel that it is important to share these materials with the community. If you are interested in helping us, or have any info on how to do this in an affordable way, please let us know.

Volunteer News

A few weeks ago, we received a number of emails from our post on Idealist.org, where we asked for "virtual" translation volunteers. We now have potential volunteer translators for the following languages: Spanish, Arabic, Bengali and Urdu. Translation and interpretation services are also available for speakers of Chinese, Korean, Russian and Haitian Creole. We are always looking for volunteer translators/interpreters. Contact us for more info!

Thank you to all of our wonderful and dedicated volunteers!

Education News

It appears that PIVE's mission to promote translation and interpretation services to parents is truly addressing a crucial need in NYC. At the time of our founding, we referred to a study by the New York Immigration Coalition (which you can find in our related links section), that reported that parents and school officials were unaware of these services.

The NYIC has released the findings of an updated study, which finds that parents are still largely in the dark about these services and many are not seeing the results of this language access policy. Among the findings:

60% of surveyed parents reported being unaware of their rights to translation and interpretation.
Two-thirds of respondents did not receive report cards or notices about Parent Teacher Conferences in their native language.

We encourage you to read the report (or at least the Executive Summary) for more information. We do understand that the Translation and Interpretation Unit is a new office of the NYC DOE, and the posting of this link is not intended to criticize them. However, we must acknowledge the severity of this problem.

While we would have hoped for a major improvement in these statistics, we now feel even more motivated to continue on our mission to organize and educate parents on these issues.

Thank you!

As always, we want to thank you for your continued support and encourage you to share with us any comments, questions or suggestions in work we could be doing to help immigrant parents become a more meaningful part of their children's education!

2007-05-15T21:47:00.001-05:00

PIVE was featured in another NYU online publication. Pless check out our press release here:
http://www.nyu.edu/public.affairs/releases/detail/1554

We are very pleased with the local support we have been receiving, and are very receptive for any ideas or additional help you may have to offer. Thank you!

May Update!

2007-05-02T11:52:00.000-05:00

Hi everyone!

We just wanted to give you an update as we begin the month of May. We are currently making efforts to contact parent coordinators, and are awaiting their responses.

We have completed our brochure, which you can download by clicking here.

Feel free to circulate this widely, to help us raise awareness of our program and try to recruit volunteers.

Thank you very much!

April Update

2007-04-01T23:54:00.000-05:00

As we begin the month of April, we wanted to give you an update on PIVE's progress. We are currently still setting up some of the infrastructure at the moment and getting ourselves prepared to begin. We began receiving funding from Youth Venture last week, which will greatly help us to officially start doing the real work.

As of now, we have been connecting with amazing potential volunteers. We also met with officials from the DOE Translation & Intepretation Unit. We have a list of possible schools and we will begin making calls next week, when the schools re-open after spring break.

Thanks for all of your support!

PIVE featured in Washington Square News!

2007-03-21T07:46:00.000-05:00

Washington Square News, our student-run newspaper here at NYU, published a story on us in today's paper. This is our first article, and we're very excited about it. Click here to view the story.

We are continuing to work hard toward our immediate goal of finding a school for our "pilot program." Tomorrow, we are meeting with an official from the NYC DOE Translation and Interpretation Unit, which will hopefully set us on the right path. We are also currently designing brochures, flyers and educational materials to promote language services for parents.

Once again, we want to thank all of our amazing supporters and of course Darren Levy and the editors at the Washington Square News for writing and publishing this article!

PIVE Awarded Grand Prize in Be A Changemaker Challenge!

2007-03-09T23:43:00.000-05:00

This afternoon, we learned that we have been selected as the Grand Prize Winner of the Youth Venture Be a Changemaker Challenge at NYU. We will receive:

· A $10,000 grant to support the Venture
· A $500 Staples Gift Card to purchase materials for the Venture
· A special consulting opportunity with leading entrepreneurs and experts from Youth Venture
· Enrollment in the New Venture Program at the Berkley Center for Entrepreneurial Studies
· Participation in the Stern Incubator's 2007-2008 Brown Bag speaker series
· Participation in the Stern Incubator's Entrepreneurial Boot Camp

This is an amazing opportunity, and a great honor to have received it so early on! This will give us a major push in really getting PIVE off the ground. The additional funding will allow us to greatly expand our programming (details to follow!).

Once again, thank you so much for you support!

Help Us to Translate Materials!

2007-03-01T21:38:00.000-05:00

Visit this link to view our "virtual" volunteer opportunity. If you or anyone you know is interested, please e-mail us at nypive@gmail.com.

Thanks!

PIVE Update

2007-02-27T22:17:00.000-05:00

PIVE has been chosen as 1 of 5 finalists for the Be A Changemaker Challenge Grand Prize Competition. The Grand Prize Winner will receive:

· A $10,000 grant to support the Venture
· A $500 Staples Gift Card to purchase materials for the Venture
· A special consulting opportunity with leading entrepreneurs and experts from Youth Venture
· Enrollment in the New Venture Program at the Berkley Center for Entrepreneurial Studies
· Participation in the Stern Incubator's 2007-2008 Brown Bag speaker series
· Participation in the Stern Incubator's Entrepreneurial Boot Camp

We're very excited about the prospects of winning this competition. The additional funding will allow us to greatly expand our program!

We're currently gearing up to start our work in a Jackson Heights, NY school. We are in the process of contacting an official at the NYC DOE Translation and Interpretation Unit to help us identify a school in need of our services! We will post updates as things develop.

Thanks for your support!

Idealist.org

2007-02-13T23:08:00.000-05:00

We now have an account at Idealist.org! Here is the link: http://www.idealist.org/en/org/159612-163

We look forward to posting volunteer opportunities there in the coming weeks, as we plan our first workshop!

Welcome!

2007-02-12T23:18:00.000-05:00

Welcome to the Promoting Immigrant Voices in Education Blog!

Last month, we were awarded $1000 by Youth Venture to create our initiative, which promotes the access to and utilization of translation and interpretation services in New York City public schools. We are very excited to begin!

We will start by identifying a school in the Jackson Heights area that does not tend to utilize these services. After meeting with school staff and administration, we will survey the school's parents, and begin our work of outreach and workshops to ensure that every parent is aware of their right to language services.

We look forward to updating the blog soon with the latest developments!

Thank you for your continued support!